Tuhin Kanta Pandey appointed Finance Secretary

The Centre on Saturday (September 7, 2024) named 1987 batch IAS officer from the Orissa cadre Tuhin Kanta Pandey as the new Finance Secretary, nearly a month after the incumbent T.V. Somanathan was appointed the Cabinet Secretary by the Cabinet’s apex appointment panel.

Mr. Pandey is currently serving in the Finance Ministry as the Secretary in charge of two key domains — the Departments of Public Enterprises (DPE), and Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM). DIPAM is entrusted with the mandate of maximising the value of central government firms and disinvestment of select firms as per the government’s policy for public sector enterprises.

Mr. Pandey has been the longest-serving Secretary in charge of DIPAM, a department that was first created as the Department of Disinvestment under former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s watch, and has successfully steered the critical sale of ailing national carrier Air India that continued to bleed the exchequer till its divestment to the Tata group was completed in January 2022.

“The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet [ACC] has approved designating Shri Tuhin Kanta Pandey (IAS OR:87), Secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, Ministry of Finance, as Finance Secretary,” the secretariat to the ACC under the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said in an order issued on Saturday (September 7, 2024).

This appointment comes at the back of other major changes effected in the Finance Ministry’s top brass over the past month, apart from the change of role for Mr. Somanathan who has now taken charge as the country’s top official as Cabinet Secretary, replacing incumbent Rajiv Gauba.

Former Ministry of Corporate Affairs Secretary Manoj Govil, a 1991 batch Madhya Pradesh cadre officer, was appointed the Expenditure Secretary on August 16, 2024. The same day, as part of a broader bureaucratic rejig, Nagaraju Maddirala, a 1993 batch IAS officer of the Tripura cadre, was named the new Secretary in the Department of Financial Services with incumbent Vivek Joshi (1989 batch, Haryana cadre IAS officer) transferred as the Secretary, DoPT.

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