T.V. Somanathan, the current Finance Secretary, has been appointed as the new Cabinet Secretary, effective August 30. He will succeed Rajiv Gauba, who is set to complete an unprecedented five-year term in this top bureaucratic position at the end of this month.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved Somanathan’s appointment for a two-year term. Additionally, Somanathan will serve as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the Cabinet Secretariat until he officially takes over as Cabinet Secretary, according to an order issued by the Personnel Ministry.
Somanathan, a 1987 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, has held various key positions throughout his career. He served as Joint Secretary and Additional Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office from 2015 to 2017 and later in his cadre state before being appointed as Expenditure Secretary in December 2019. He assumed the role of Finance Secretary in April 2021.
A qualified Chartered Accountant (CA) and Company Secretary (CS), Somanathan is proficient in five languages: English, French, Hausa, Hindi, and Tamil. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in economics from Calcutta University. His extensive experience includes working with the World Bank in the USA, serving as Joint Secretary in the Corporate Affairs Ministry, and as Managing Director of Chennai Metro Corporation.
Somanathan also chairs a committee established in April last year to review the pension system for government employees. His appointment comes as the current Union Home Secretary, Ajay Kumar Bhalla, is expected to complete his five-year tenure on August 22.
Rajiv Gauba, who will be stepping down, will be recognized as the longest-serving Cabinet Secretary in India’s history, surpassing the previous record held by B.D. Pande. Gauba, a 1982-batch IAS officer of Jharkhand cadre, played a pivotal role in the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which led to the bifurcation of the erstwhile state into Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Sources By Agencies
