Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Principal Advisor Pradeep Kumar Sinha resigned from his post on Monday citing personal reasons. Mr. Sinha was a 1977 batch officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre and was on extension after retiring. He was the only officer to get an extension three times in the history of IAS service and has also held the post of Cabinet Secretary before joining the Prime Minister’s office.
He can now be appointed as the Governor of a state or the Lieutenant Governor of small state like Delhi- Pondicherry. Let it be noted that he is the third top official to leave the PMO in the last 21 months. In the first term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, no officer has to bid farewell to the PMO. While, Mr. Modi’s principal secretary retired as he took the charge of PM for the second time. Nripendra Mishra, a 1967 batch officer of Uttar Pradesh was brought into the PMO in 2014 by enacting a special law after his retirement. After being removed from the PMO, he has been given the charge of the Ram Janambhoomi Temple Construction Committee. After this, IAS AK Sharma of Gujarat’s cadre of 1988 batch who was Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Officer was removed and given the charge of the first MSME Ministry. He recently joined the BJP after resigning from his service and has been elected as a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council.
Special Post Created
PK Sinha was appointed as the prime advisor to the Prime Minister after being removed from the post of Cabinet Secretary. The post was specially created for him. He was looking into all the policy related matters of all the ministries. But, he was not given the status of Union Minister like Prime Minister Principal Secretary PK Mishra and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.
Secretary, Ministry of Power
He was the Secretary, Ministry of Power at the time of the formation of the Modi Government in 2014. A year later he was appointed to the PMO. During this time the Ministry of Power under his leadership had achieved the capacity to generate more than 22500 MW of power.
