Lateral entry: Nine specialists join Govt at Joint Secy level

Those appointed include Food and Agriculture Organization’s Kakoli Ghosh, who has been appointed in the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare; consultancy KPMG’s partner and India head of aerospace and defence Amber Dubey, who will be joining the Ministry of Civil Aviation; former banker and SAARC Development Fund’s director — economic and infrastructure Rajeev Saksena who will join Department of Economic Affairs; Pune-based wind energy firm Panama Renewable Group’s CEO Dinesh Dayanand Jagdale who has been appointed in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy; NHPC Ltd’s senior manager (environment) Sujit Kumar Bajpayee, who will join the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

The lateral appointees will have a term of three-years from the date of joining, which could be extended to five years depending upon their performance. According to sources, the nine appointees are expected to join in the next two months.

Other appointees include Arun Goel in the Department of Commerce, Saurabh Mishra in the Department of Financial Services, Suman Prasad Singh in the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways and Bhushan Kumar in the Ministry of Shipping.

The government had also invited applications for a lateral entry into the Department of Revenue. However, UPSC said that recruitment process for the selection of candidate in the department became “infructuous at the interview stage”.

In June last year, the personnel ministry had invited applications for the joint-secretary level posts through the lateral entry mode. Posts of joint-secretaries are usually manned by officers of Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service, Indian Forest Service and Indian Revenue Service among others who are selected through a three-phased rigorous selection process undertaken by the UPSC.

The selected professionals will be provided compensations in accordance with the joint-secretary level, which is in the pay scale of Rs 144,200-Rs 218,200 per month. In addition, they shall be eligible for all allowances and facilities etc as applicable to the equivalent level in the Government of India. However, the Government reserves its right to place deserving appointees at an appropriate level within the scale of pay.

Government think tank Niti Aayog had in a report highlighted that it was essential that specialists be inducted into the system through lateral entry on fixed-term contract.

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