Tarun Bajaj shifted to revenue department

Tarun Bajaj has been made the new revenue secretary, while Ajay Seth, has been appointed as DEA secretary.

Mr. Bajaj has been holding additional charge as Revenue Secretary following the superannuation of Ajay Bhushan Pandey. Mr. Bajaj is an old hand in the Ministry of Finance, having worked as Joint Secretary before he was moved to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

In Economic Affairs, the government has appointed Karnataka cadre IAS officer of the 1988 batch, Ajay Seth, who worked as Managing Director of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation in Karnataka.

A 1988 batch Haryana-cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, Bajaj is a veteran of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), having served there from April 2015 to April 2020.

Meanwhile, Seth, a 1987 batch Karnataka-cadre IAS officer, is currently the MD of BMRC and has been serving the state administration continuously since 2008. Before that, he had a nearly four-year stint as an advisor in Asian Development Bank.

Gyanesh Kumar, additional secretary in the Department of Home, has been appointed as secretary in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs upon superannuation of R S Shukla on April 30, it said.

Ali Raza Rizvi, special secretary and financial adviser in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, will be secretary in the Department of Public Enterprises, the order said.

Indevar Pandey, a 1988-batch IAS officer of the West Bengal cadre, has been appointed secretary in the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances. Pandey is currently special secretary in the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region.

Anjali Bhawra has been appointed secretary in the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

While the government didn’t cite any reason why Bajaj was moved out of the DEA, speculation is on that he was edged out as a result of the “embarrassment the government had to face over an order announcing cut in interest rate on small savings including National Savings Certificates (NSC) and Public Provident Fund (PPF) and Kisan Vikas Patra which was later withdrawn in a huff”.