NEW DELHI, JULY 22: North Block witnessed a complete change of guard with P G Mankad taking over as as the finance and revenue secretary along with other key functionaries assuming new responsibilities on Thursday morning.Mankad has replaced Vijay Kelkar, who after a short stint at the North Block relinquished charge to join International Monetary Fund as the executive director.The only difference is that Kelkar as finance secretary was looking department of economic affairs, while Mankad will oversee department of revenue in addition to his responsibilites as finance secretary. He will be sitting in the room occupied by Kelkar and before him by Montek Singh Ahluwalia.Mankad is not new to finance ministry. He had worked in the ministry as deputy secretary and later as joint secretary. However before taking up the new assignment, he was information and broadcasting secretary. He had wide experience in areas of domestic and foreign investment promotion, industrial policy and development, capitalmarkets, public sector reforms and disinvestment and issues relating to Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). He has been on the boards of UTI, ICICI, IFCI, India Growth Fund and IIM, Ahmedabad among others.Along with Mankad, the other new secretaries who assumed charge include EAS Sharma, C M Vasudev and special secretary Devil Dayal.Sharma, had joined the finance ministry about a year ago, as expenditure secretary replacing C Ramachandran who left the ministry to join Asian Development Bank (ADB). Sharma was power secretary before joining the finance ministry. In the recent bureaucratic reshuffle, he was shifted to department of economic affairs. He also took charge of as DEA secretary on Thursday and will be looking after areas hitherto under the direct charge of Kelkar.Sharma handed over the charge of department of expenditure to his colleague in the finance ministry C M Vasudev. Vasudev has a long association with the finance ministry as special secretary banking. The immediate challenge beforehim would be to ensure funds for defence without curtailing the development expenditure.In the banking division, which is a part of the department of economic affairs, Devi Dayal has taken over as special secretary. He was secretary (coordination) in the prime minister's office. For long, Devi Dayal had worked in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas.The only old timer in the ministry is chief economic adviser Shankar N Acharya. He was in the team of former finance minister Manmohan Singh and played a key role in the economic reforms programme initiated in 1991 along with M S Ahluwalia.
