New Delhi: The Central government on Tuesday appointed senior bureaucrat Meera Mohanty Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), while Ritesh Chauhan has been appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. Mohanty, a 2005-batch IAS officer of the Himachal Pradesh cadre, is currently serving as the Director in the PMO.

As per an order issued by the Ministry of Personnel and Training, Mohanty has been appointed as the Joint Secretary in the PMO for a combined tenure up to May 1, 2022 by temporarily upgrading the post of director held by the officer. Her cadre and batch mate Chauhan will be the CEO, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and Joint Secretary, Agriculture under the Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare for a combined tenure of seven years up to September 22, 2023, said the order.

Uma Nanduri, a 1993-batch Indian Forest Service (IFoS) officer of the Odisha cadre, will be the joint secretary in the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav secretariat under the Ministry of Culture, the order said. Vipul Bansal will be the joint secretary in the Department of Commerce and Ashish Kumar has been appointed as Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs. Pawan Kumar Sain has been appointed as Joint Secretary, Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister, Niti Aayog.

Amitesh Kumar Sinha will be Joint Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Sameer Shukla, Joint Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Saumya Gupta, Joint Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Harish Chandra Chaudhary, Joint Secretary, NHRC and Kuldip Narayan will be Joint Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Vandana Kumar has been named as Joint Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and N Yuvaraj will be Joint Secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals. /BI/