Tue. Mar 19th, 2024
Rashtrapati Bhawan

The government has appointed its first batch of private professionals to the post of Joint Secretary in various ministries. The decision has been taken under the government’s “lateral entry” policy.

Previously, Prime Minister Narendra Modi government had invited applications from working individuals in different spheres to fill the post of 10 joint secretaries. The idea is to infill the public services with outside talent who can provide the edge of specialization to the administration at middle-level bureaucracy.

The appointments have been cleared by the Appointment Committee of the Cabinet, chaired by Narendra Modi. The notified tenure of these appointed Joint Secretaries is presently three years. They have been deputed to the Level 14 of the pay matrix under 7th Pay commission.

APPOINTMENTS THROUGH LATERAL ENTRY

  1. Kakoli Ghosh (Ministry of Agriculture)
  2. Suman Prasad Singh (Road Transport and Highways)
  3. Bhushan Kumar (Shipping)
  4. Amber Dubey (Civil Aviation)
  5. Saurabh Mishra (Financial Services)
  6. Dinesh Dayanand Jagdale (New and Renewable Energy)
  7. Arun Goel (Commerce)
  8. Rajeev Saksena (Economic Affairs)
  9. Sujit Kumar Bajpayee (Environment, Forests)

Traditionally, the posts of Joint Secretaries were reserved exclusively for All-India Services like IAS (Indian Administrative Service) and IPS (Indian Police Service) and others. But in order to overhaul the efficiency of administration and infuse the concept of “Domain-specialization“, the government approved the lateral entry process.

The decision has left the political and bureaucratic class in mixed responses. While some have accused the government of privatizing public services, others have lauded the government’s efforts to make the bureaucracy more specialized and dynamic.

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By Saurabh Parmar

Digital Journalist (Specializing in Indian affairs & Contemporary Political development)

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