Saturday, February 5, 2011

all pranab da men in finance

ALL PRANAB DA MEN IN FINANCE MINISTRY

From Our Delhi Bureau

NEW DELHI: A day after appointment of Expenditure Secretary Sushma
Nath as India's first woman finance secretary, Information Technology
Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma (58), a Bihar cadre IAS officer of 1976
seniority, on Saturday joined the Finance Ministry as the new
financial secretary to handle the banking sector.

He succeeds R Gopalan who was holding the additional charge since
after he was shifted as Secretary, Economic Affairs, in place of
retired finance secretary Ashok Chawla.

With the induction of Sharma, the stamp of Finance Minister Pranab
Mukherjee is obvious with all officers who worked with him in the past
are now assembled in the finance ministry. Sharma was an additional
secretary in Defence when Mukherjee was the defence minister. Gopalan
is also a Mukherjee favourite.

Earlier, Thomas Mathews, another IAS officer who was in Defence, was
brought in by Mukherjee to monitor the capital markets in place of Dr
K P Krishnan, a P Chidambaram appointee.

Much to the resistance of the IAS lobby, Mukherjee had brought in Venu
Rajamoni, an IFS cadre officer, to look after the fund banking
division. Venu was a Pranab da favourite when the latter was the
External Affairs Minister.

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