Odisha-Cadre IAS Officer Among 31 Appointed As Joint Secretaries At Centre

New Delhi: The central government on Monday appointed 31 senior bureaucrats, including Odisha-cadre IAS officer Vishal Gagan, as joint secretaries of different departments.

Gagan will be joint secretary, Department of Defence, for a tenure of five years, an order issued by the personnel ministry said.

The 1998-batch IAS officer had earlier served as Managing Director of OMFED and Commissioner-cum-Secretary of the Fisheries and Animal Resource Development Department. He was also Special Secretary, Water Resources.

The major reshuffle also saw Rajeev Singh Thakur, a 1995 batch IAS officer of Rajasthan cadre, and Shantanu, a 1997 batch Tripura cadre IAS officer, appointed as joint secretaries in the newly-created department of military affairs.

Similarly, Ashutosh Agnihotri has been appointed joint secretary in Home Ministry, while Jammu and Kashmir cadre IAS officer Ashok Kumar Parmar will be advisor, inter state council secretariat under the same Ministry.

The other appoints are as follows:-

Bharat H Khera –  joint secretary, Cabinet Secretariat.

Vimalendra Anand Patwardhan –  joint secretary and financial adviser in Civil Aviation Ministry,

Nagaraju Maddirala – joint secretary in the Coal Ministry.

S Suresh Kumar – joint secretary in Department of Commerce

and Puneet Agarwal – joint secretary, Department of Defence Production