Senior IAS officer TV Somanathan appointed as Cabinet Secretary for two years
The Cabinet Appointments Committee on Saturday appointed senior civil servant TV Somanathan as Cabinet Secretary of India.
He will serve for two years, starting August 30. Somanathan, a 1987-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, is currently India’s finance minister.
He will perform the duties of a special officer in the Cabinet Secretariat from the date he takes up office until he assumes the position of Cabinet Secretary, the appointments committee said in the notice.
Somanathan became Finance Minister in 2019 and was appointed Finance Minister in 2021. A veteran of budget-making, Somanathan has tried to balance the demands of coalition partners without compromising the financial soundness in the July budget.
Somanathan, a 1987-batch IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, worked in the Prime Minister’s Office from April 2015 to August 2017.
The bureaucrat played a key role in the FY22 budget, which ended the practice of off-budget borrowing in an effort to make central government balance sheets more transparent.
The finance minister, who has a doctorate in economics, has published more than 80 papers and articles on economics. He is also the author of two books.
Somanathan also served as Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and as a Seconded Director at the World Bank in Washington, DC.
With this development, senior IAS officer Tuhin Kanta Pandey could become the next finance minister. Normally, the most senior official in the finance ministry becomes the finance minister.
As Secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (Dipam), Pandey is responsible for setting targets for disinvestment and resource mobilisation through dividends of public sector undertakings.
Pandey, an Odisha government official appointed in 1987, is credited with completing the much-awaited sale of national carrier Air India and also played a key role in the initial public offering of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC).
First publication: Aug 10, 2024 | 6:42 PM IST