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Informist, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024

 

--Govt appoints Arunish Chawla as revenue secretary

--CONTEXT: Arunish Chawla was previously secretary, Dept of Pharmaceuticals

 

NEW DELHI – The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet Wednesday approved the appointment of Arunish Chawla as the revenue secretary in the Ministry of Finance. Chawla, who was serving as secretary in the Department of Pharmaceuticals in the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, will take over from Ajay Seth.

 

Seth, the economic affairs secretary, was given additional charge of the revenue department on Dec. 10 after incumbent Sanjay Malhotra was named the governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

 

As per a government notification issued on Wednesday, Chawla will continue to hold the additional charge of secretary in the Ministry of Culture until a regular appointment is made or until further orders.

 

Chawla, a 1992 batch Indian Administrative Officer from the Bihar cadre, has a long track record in finance and economics. He has a master's degree and a doctorate in economics from the London School of Economics, and served as a senior economist in the International Monetary Fund while on foreign assignment from August 2020 to August 2022. Prior to that, he spent three years as minister (economic), a joint secretary level post, at the Indian embassy in Washington DC, US, as part of the Ministry of External Affairs. He was also a joint secretary in the finance ministry's expenditure department from August 2014 to October 2016. Over the years, Chawla has been trained in monetary policy, financial programming, and macro-econometric modelling at the IMF Institute in Washington, DC.

 

Chawla takes charge of the revenue department at a crucial time, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman slated to present the Union Budget for 2025-26 (Apr-Mar) on Feb. 1. As the revenue secretary, Chawla will play a key role in estimating the central government's revenues for the next financial year, although preparations for the same would have already begun under Sanjay Malhotra before he moved from North Block to Mint Street earlier this month.

 

Meanwhile, the government also said that Amit Agrawal, chief executive officer of the Unique Identification Authority of India, will replace Chawla as secretary in the Department of Pharmaceuticals.  End

 

Reported by Siddharth Upasani

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

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