Batchmates Bonhomie: What does R Gopalan's 3-month extension mean?

(R to L) Gopalan, Mrs Paul, Gujral, Bose

THE government has given department of economic affairs (DEA) secretary R Gopalan an extension of three months allowing batch-mates’ bonhomie continuing in North Block. Both finance secretary RS Gujral who also looks after the revenue department and expenditure secretary Sumit Bose are Gopalan’s 1976 IAS batch-mates.

Had this three months’ extension not materialized, Gopalan, an MBA from Harvard, would have retired on April 30, 2012. But what has made Gopalan so special that finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and his adviser Omita Paul have vouched for...

Batchmates’ Budget: How officials ensure that Budget does not get leaked

Gopalan (L), Gujral, Bose (R). FM's adviser Omita Paul is seen

IT’S a rare occasion that preparations of this general Budget were anchored by three IAS batch-mates. Call it a mere coincidence. RS Gujral, finance secretary in charge of revenue department, Sumit Bose, expenditure secretary and R Gopalan, secretary, department of economic affairs (DEA) are in fact 1976 batch IAS. The other two North Block secretaries, financial services secretary DK Mittal and disinvestment secretary Mohammad Haleem Khan are both one batch junior to them.

The job of preparing the Budget that begins in November every year is handled by DEA. But departments like revenue and expenditure give critical inputs to the document and become part and parcel of the entire Budget making process. The finance minister can undertake changes in the document till it goes for printing six days before it’s to be presented in Parliament. As high degree of secrecy is maintained, the Budget document is printed at the press located in North Block’s basement itself.

Most officers working in finance ministry have no idea whether there will be any tax cut or increase in excise duties! Also, a secretary in charge of one department does not know what’s in store for issues related to other departments. The one person who reads the Budget from top to bottom is the DEA joint secretary in charge of the Budget. He along with a few junior officials stay round the clock in North Block at least for the last 10 days. They need to ensure that nothing gets leaked before it’s presented in Parliament on the B-Day. The guys working in the printing press are not allowed to go home when the document is being printed. Packed lunch and dinner, brought from outside, are served there.

But should there be such an aura of secrecy when many policy announcements and even hikes of petroleum prices are done outside the Budget? Once the Direct Tax Code is in place, there will be no surprise tax front in any future Budget. The reality is that in days to come, the Budget may no longer be such a high secret affair!

RS Gujral pipes R Gopalan, Sumit Bose; becomes new finance secretary

Gujral (R) was reportedly sidelined by CP Joshi (L)

NINETEEN days after Sunil Mitra retired as finance secretary, the North Block finally found its new man at the helms --- 1976 batch Haryana cadre IAS, RS Gujral. Till recently, he was not even in the reckoning to clinch the coveted North Block post. But with his appointment as the new finance secretary, Gujral will now be the boss of his two outstanding batch-mates, DEA secretary R Gopalan and expenditure secretary Sumit Bose, both come under finance ministry. Gujral will continue to handle the revenue department which oversees the work of CBDT and CBEC.

A Humphery fellow from US, Gujral was the Director General of Foreign Trade and had closely worked with Kamal Nath when the latter was the minister of commerce and industry during the last UPA government. When Nath became the minister for road transport and highways, he brought Gujral to his ministry. But Gujral did not get along with new road transport and highways minister CP Joshi over the ministry’s dealings with Planning Commission.

Only three weeks ago, he moved into the finance ministry as revenue secretary. But Gujral’s seniority over his batch-mates Gopalan and Bose helped him getting the finance secretary’s post. Sumit Bose still has a chance to be finance secretary three years from now, as he will retire only in March, 2014, but Gopalan will retire in April, 2012. Gujral will have a fairly long period as finance secretary as he will retire in November 2013.

MHA clarifies on 1981 batch IPS JV Ramudu

After JV Ramudu, a 1981 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IPS, was made a member of Special Investigation Team (SIT), it was now found that Ramudu would not be a part of the panel because of a surgery that he had sometime ago. The surgery requires constant medical check-ups. The SIT was constituted by Gujarat High Court to investigate the alleged fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and others.

Here is the clarification of the ministry of home affairs: “The medical condition of Shri J.V. Ramudu was brought to the notice of the Ministry of Home Affairs only after his name had been approved by the High Court and Home Ministry had to approach the Hon’ble High Court to nominate another officer from a fresh panel of three names, which has since been accepted by the High Court. Neither the State Government of Andhra Pradesh nor the officer himself had brought to the notice of MHA the inability of the officer to be a part of SIT, although his name had been indicated in the High Court’s order in May, 2011”.

Why will Sumit Bose become next finance secretary, and not R Gopalan?

WITH the appointment of disinvestment secretary Sumit Bose as the ODS in the department of expenditure under the finance ministry, the decks are cleared for this 1976 batch Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS to become India’s next finance secretary. As Bose will retire only in March, 2014, he will have a long-haul in the North Block’s power centre.

Bose will first become the expenditure secretary by the end of this month when the incumbent and Bose’s two batch senior officer of the same cadre Sushama Nath’s extension ends.

But how will then Sumit Bose become India’s finance secretary? Here is how the situation works in his favour.

According to conventions, the senior most officer among secretaries of all departments of the finance ministry is designated as finance secretary. The departments in finance ministry include the department of economic affairs, department of financial services, department of revenue, department of expenditure and department of disinvestment. And with revenue secretary and 1975 batch IAS Sunil Mitra retiring in the end of the next month, there will be no officer senior to Bose provided the government does not bring in a 1975 batch officer as revenue secretary. But that’s a rare possibility.

But how will then Bose become finance secretary and not his batch-mate and one of FM’s favourite officers R Gopalan, currently working as secretary in the department of economic affairs? In the merit-cum-seniority list of 1976 batch, Bose is marginally above Gopalan and hence Bose will be designated as the finance secretary.

Had commerce secretary and 1975 batch IAS Rahul Khullar become the DEA secretary, the situation would have been different. Khullar would have been the finance secretary by the simple measure of seniority.

The only impediment in Bose becoming finance secretary now is the induction of any of the three officers, S Sundareshan, Uday Kumar Varma and Anita Chaudhary, as revenue secretary. All these three officers are Bose’s batch-mates, but are senior to him in the merit-cum-seniority list. But that argument is only for theoretical purpose as none of those officers has a chance to become revenue secretary and thereby finance secretary.

Read
Profile of Sumit Bose
Bio-data of R Gopalan

Action and Appointments

a) Ms S Radha Chauhan, a 1988 batch UP cadre IAS has been appointed as joint secretary in the department of school education and literacy.

b) The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved proposal for premature repatriation of Sada Kant, a 1983 batch UP cadre IAS presently joint secretary in the ministry of home affairs to his parent cadre of Uttar Pradesh.

Indian Finance Minister’s B-team gets ready for the big annual event of Feb 26

HERE'S the picture of India’s B-team that has sealed the fate of Budget 2010-11, which is being presented in Parliament by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday. Sitting along with Mr Mukherjee (middle) are minister of state (revenue) SS Palanimanickam (right) and the minister of state (E,B&I), Namo Narain Meena (left), both of whom incidentally are were not deeply involved in nuances of the Budget.

But the men who were actually behind this mammoth exercise spanning over three months and more, are the bureaucrats standing behind Pranab babu and his ministerial colleagues. Expenditure secretary Sushama Nath (extreme right), a 1974 batch MP cadre IAS and finance secretary Ashok Chawla (5^th from right) and 1973 batch Gujarat cadre IAS are the two bureaucrats who were part of the Budget team of P Chidambaram too. Also, the chairman of CBDT SSN Moorthy (third from left) and CBEC chairman V Sridhar (2^nd from left) have been part and parcel of this year’s Budget process from the very beginning.

What’s however is quite significant this time is the induction of a number of new faces after the Budget preparation process had actually begun. By the time, Cornell University professor Kaushik Basu (4^th from the left) joined the North Block as chief economic advisor in November at the rank and pay of a secretary, he did not have much time to experiment on how bureaucracy works, and he began the gigantic task of collating the economic survey that was presented on Thursday.

Interestingly, as many as three key bureaucrats --- R Gopalan (5^th from left), a 1976 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS and banking secretary, Sunil Mitra (2^nd from right), 1975 batch West Bengal cadre IAS and revenue secretary, and finally Sumit Bose, 1976 batch MP cadre IAS and disinvestment secretary --- donned their roles in North Block much after the Budget process had already reached its peak.

Bihar IAS’ office raided

Bihar Vigilance Investigation Bureau on Thursday carried out a raid at the office of the outgoing Patna Municipal Commissioner K Senthil Kumar, a 1996 batch Bihar cadre IAS and seized some documents. There was a raid both at the office and residence on Wednesday too. He reportedly owns a café and a departmental store in addition to having a number of immovable properties in Patna, Delhi and Chennai. 

Know Your Babu: New banking secretary R Gopalan, IAS, 1976

AN MBA from Harvard University and masters in economics from Boston University, new banking secretary R Gopalan has a rich experience on economic matters thanks to his long innings in the ministry of commerce and industries. Here is the man who will now handle the financial services department under the finance ministry.

Bio-data

Name: R Gopalan
Batch and Cadre: 1976 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS
Date of Birth: April 20, 1952
Place of domicile: Tamil Nadu
Mother Tongue: Tamil
Foreign Languages Known: German

Educational Qualifications
a) MBA in Public Administration from Harvard University
b) PG in Economics from Boston University

Major Postings
a) Managing Director, Industries, (From April1, 1984 to March 1, 1986)
b) Collector, (Deputy Secretary level) Ppm Ramalingam,
(From April 1, 1986 to July 1, 1988)
c) Deputy secretary, ministry of food processing industries, New Delhi
(From July 21, 1988 to May 1, 1990)
d) Private secretary, (director equivalent) in the ministry of chemicals & fertilizers, New Delhi (From May 1, 1991 to July 1, 1991)
e) Director, department of chemicals and petro chemicals, New Delhi
(From July 1, 1991 to June 1, 1994)
f) CEO, (JS level), Khadi and Village Industries
(From June 1, 1996 to September 1, 1996)
g) Chairman and MD,
September 1, 1996 to May 1, 1997)
h) Chairman and MD, (JS level),
(From October 15, 997 to December 13, 2000)
i) Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, New Delhi
(From December 14, 2000 to June 30, 2006)
j) Additional Secretary, ministry of commerce and industry
(May 28, 2007 to November 24, 2009)
k) Special Secretary, (Secretary Equivalent), ministry of commerce and industry, (From November 24, 2009 to December 31, 2009)
l) Secretary, department of financial services, ministry of finance, New Delhi
(From December 31, 2009 till date)

Prez Patil says she is proud of more women joining Indian Police Service

PRESIDENT of India Pratibha Patil wants IPS officers to take a few steps ahead of law breakers and says she is proud to see a large number of women joing Indian Police Service. She was talking to a group of probationers of the 61st batch of the IPS who called on her at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday. The group of 91 officers, in which 22 are lady officers, bring with them the experience from varied backgrounds, with some of them being qualified doctors, engineers and information tech-nologists.
The women officers of this IPS batch described their aspirations to the President, saying that they would strive to sensitize the police on important social issues, help the poor and be leaders, by having a vision.

Defence secretary on China visit from January 6
Defence secretary Pradeep Kumar, a 1972 batch from Haryana cadre, is expected to visit China from January 6 to hold dialogue with the Chinese military leadership, media reports said. It will be the first ever official visit by an Indian defence secretary to Beijing.

Action and Appointments
a) R Gopalan, a 1976 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS, presently special secretary, department of commerce, has been appointed as secretary, department of financial services, ministry of finance by upgrading the post of additional secretary held by G C Chaturvedi, a 1977 batch UP cadre IAS to its original level of secretary. In turn, GC Chaturevedi, will remain as additional secretary in the department of financial services until further orders.
b) Rajinder Pal Singh, a 1976 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS, presently on compulosry wait in the department of financial services, ministry of finance, has been appointed as secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), ministry of commerce and industry in place of Ajay Shanker, a 1973 batch UP cadre IAS who retired on December 31, 2009.
c) Anwar Ehsan Ahmad, a 1976 batch Manipur-Tripura cadre IAS, presently special secretary, ministry of home affairs, has been appointed as secretary, department of border management in the MHA.

Indian Educational Service: Why does govt need to create yet another subordinate cadre?

AS THE government mulls over creating a new service called Indian Educational Service (IES) on the lines of IAS, Indian Forest Service or Indian Revenue Service, many officers from Group-A services have said in the condition of anonymity said that such a specialised service would be meaningless until it's made clear that the human resource development (HRD) would finally be manned by that specialised cadre alone. The officers of the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) which is one of the large cadres with 4,400 men all over the country, have now been lobbying hard to make the Income-Tax department independent of the clutches of IAS officers. They are citing the example of Indian Railways and Indian Postal department where their own officers man the show up to the apex level.

1976 batch IAS officers elevated to special secretaries and secretaries

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the following appointments, on in-situ elevation, with effect from 24th November, 2009. (i) Syed Nasim Ahmad Zaidi, a 1976 batch UP cadre IAS as DG, civil aviation, ministry of civil aviation in the rank and pay of secretary; (ii) Raminder Singh Gujral, a 1976 batch Haryana cadre IAS as DGFT, department of commerce, ministry of commerce and industry in the rank and pay of secretary; (iii) Ajoy Acharya, a 1976 batch MP cadre IAS, as special secretary, department of defence production, ministry of defence, (iv) Pradeep Kumar Misra, a 1976 batch UP cadre IAS, as Establishment Officer and special secretary, department of personnel & training (DoPT), ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions; (v) S Sundareshan, a 1976 batch Kerala cadre, as special secretary, ministry of petroleum and natural gas; (vi) Uday Kumar Varma, a 1976 batch MP cadre IAS, as special secretary, ministry of information and broadcasting; (vii) Ms Anita Chudhary, a 1976 batch Haryana cadre IAS, as special secretary, ministry of home affairs; (viii) Sumit Bose, a 1976 batch MP cadre IAS, as secretary, 13th Finance Commission in the rank and pay of secretary (ix) R Gopalan, a 1976 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS, as special secretary in the department of commerce, ministry of commerce and industry; (x) Mathew C Kunnumkal, a 1976 batch Kerala cadre IAS, as special secretary & financial adviser, department of chemical & petrochemicals, ministry of chemicals & fertilizers; (xi) Pramod Deepak Sudhakar, a 1976 batch UP cadre IAS, as special secretary, ministry of corporate affairs; (xii) M Raman, a 1976 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS, as DGS&D, department of commerce, ministry of commerce & industry in the rank and pay of secretary; (xiii) A Didar Singh, a 1976 batch Punjab cadre IAS, as Member (Finance), National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), ministry of road transport and highways in the rank and pay of secretary; (xiv) Subramanyam Vijay Kumar, a 1976 batch Himachal Pradesh cadre IAS, as special secretary, ministry of mines; (xv) Rajen Habib Khwaja, a 1976 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS, as special secretary, ministry of environment and forests; (xvi) Samirendra Chatterjee, a 1976 batch Assam cadre IAS, as Member Secretary, National Commission for Women in the rank and pay of secretary; (xvii) Sutanu Behuria, a 1976 batch Himachal Pradesh cadre IAS, as special secretary & financial adviser, department of commerce, ministry of commerce and industry; (xviii) Anil Kumar, a 1976 batch Nagaland cadre IAS, as special secretary, ministry of power; (xix) K S Money, a 1976 batch Rajasthan cadre IAS, as Member (Administration), National Highways Authority of India, ministry of road transport and highways in the rank and pay of secretary; (xx) Shashi Kant Sharma, a 1976 batch Bihar cadre IAS, as DG (Acquisition), department of defence, ministry of defence, in the rank and pay of secretary; (xxi) Dhruv Vijai Singh, a 1976 batch Manipur-Tripura cadre IAS, as special secretary, department of administrative reforms and public grievances, ministry of personnel, public grievances & pensions; (xxii) Anil Bhushan Prasad, a 1976 batch Bihar cadre IAS, as secretary, National Disaster Management Authority, ministry of home affairs in the rank and pay of secretary; (xxiii) V Venkateshwara Bhat, a 1976 batch UT cadre IAS, as Member (Finance), Atomic Energy Commission/ Space Commission/ Earth Commission in the rank and pay of secretary; (xxiv) P Uma Shanker, a 1976 batch UP cadre IAS, as Chairman and Managing Director, Rural Electrification Corporation, in the rank and pay of secretary; (xxv) Anwar Ehsan Ahmad, a 1976 batch Manipur-Tripura cadre IAS, as special secretary, ministry of home affairs; (xxvi) Prabeer Kumar Basu, a 1976 batch Bihar cadre IAS, as special secretary, department of agriculture and cooperation, ministry of agriculture; (xxvii) Sayan Chatterjee, a 1976 batch Kerala cadre IAS, as Director General, Sports Authority of India, department of sports, ministry of youth affairs and sports, in the rank and pay of secretary; (xxviii) Naba Kumar Das, a 1976 batch Assam cadre IAS, as special secretary, department of agriculture and cooperation, ministry of agriculture; (xxix) Ms Minnie Mathew, a 1976 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS, as Chairman, Coconut Development Board, department of agriculture and cooperation, ministry of agriculture, in the rank and pay of secretary; (xxx) K S Ramasubban, a 1976 batch West bengal cadre IAS, as secretary, Central Vigilance Commission, in the rank and pay of secretary; (xxxi) Bishnu Charan Khatua, a 1976 batch Maharashtra cadre IAS, as chairman, Forward Markets Commission, department of consumer affairs, ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution, in the pay of secretary; (xxxii) Shashi Prakash, a 1976 batch Manipur-Tripura cadre IAS, as Adviser, Inter State Council Secretariat, ministry of home affairs in the pay of secretary.