Bhubaneswar: Former Jammu and Kashmir lieutenant governor Girish Chandra Murmu is the new Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India.
Murmu will replace Rajiv Mehrishi, a 1978-batch IAS officer of the Rajasthan cadre, as the CAG.
A native of Betnoti in Mayurbhanj district, the 1985-batch Gujarat cadre IAS officer is the first Odia to be appointed to the post.
However, he is not the only one with Odisha connection to hold this post.
Odisha-cadre IAS officer C G Somiah had served as the eighth CAG of India. He was the secretary of the planning commission when Dr Manmohan Singh was its chairman and home secretary during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure of Prime Minister.
He wrote a best-seller autobiography ‘The honest always stand-alone’, which was launched by former President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam in New Delhi on July 15, 2010.
A native of Karnataka, he died on September 13, 2010, after a brief illness.
