Central Government Designates Tuhin Kanta Pandey As New Finance Secretary

Pandey is currently serving in the Finance Ministry as the Secretary of the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) and is the senior-most secretary in that ministry.

The officer has been the longest-serving Secretary in charge of DIPAM, a department that was first created as the Department of Disinvestment by former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

However, it has since been renamed, and is tasked with the mandate of monetising assets of the public sector enterprises of the Centre besides complete privatisation of select PSUs.

The department has in the recent past successfully steered the sale of ailing national carrier Air India that had continued to bleed the exchequer till its divestment to the Tata group 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 Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said in an order issued on September 7.

This appointment comes on the back of other major changes effected in the Finance Ministry’s top echelons over the past month.

Former Ministry of Corporate Affairs Secretary Manoj Govil, a 1991 batch Madhya Pradesh cadre officer, was appointed the Expenditure Secretary on August 16.

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 to the post of  Secretary, DoPT.

Within the Ministry of Finance; there are five secretaries: Secretary - Economic affairs, Secretary - Revenue; Secretary - Expenditure, Secretary - Financial Services and Secretary - DIPAM.

The convention is that the senior-most of these officers is usually designated as the Finance Secretary and he or she is responsible for coordination and budget making.