Government all set for a new Budget team

A new Budget team is on the anvil with N.S. Sisodia likely to move in as the Secretary Economic Affairs in place of D.C. Gupta. The present ...

A new Budget team is on the anvil with N.S. Sisodia likely to move in as the Secretary Economic Affairs in place of D.C. Gupta. The present Finance Secretary is slated to be shifted to Chennai as the head of Pension Authority.

Sisodia’s appointment will also pave the way for his becoming the Finance Secretary in terms of seniority as his colleagues, all of 1968 batch, are placed below in rank. Replacing Sisodia as Secretary Banking and Insurance would be C.D. Arha, presently Secretary Mines. Both Sisodia and Arha belong to Finance Minister Jaswant Singh’s home state Rajasthan.

The two transfers are part of a large bureaucratic reshuffle scheduled for the month-end after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee returns from his three-day visit to Nagaland on October 29.

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Sources said that the reshuffle would have been approved by the PM before the visit but for objection by some ministers to the selection of their deputies.

Prime among them is Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley who does not want Textile Secretary S.B. Mahapatra as the new Commerce Secretary in place of Dipak Chatterjee.

Tourism Secretary Rathi Vinay Jha may replace Mahapatra as Textile Secretary while Additional Secretary (Water Resources) Radha Singh would shift to fill Jha’s seat. Binoo Sen, who now heads Animal Husbandry will replace Water Resources Secretary A.K. Goswami while Additional Secretary (Coal) Lakshmi Chand will fill Sen’s place.

Another change doing the rounds is that of Food Secretary Arun K. Bhatnagar as Secretary Personnel and Training.

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