Subhash Chandra Garg, economic affairs secretary and finance secretary, on Thursday, sought early retirement from the government, TV news channels reported citing agencies. It comes a day after the senior bureaucrat was transferred to power ministry in the first major bureaucratic reshuffle by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government. Atanu Chakraborty, currently secretary in the department of investment and public asset management, has been appointed as the new economic affairs secretary. The power secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla has been appointed as an officer on special duty in the ministry of home affairs. SC Garg had been leading the fight for the Modi government in trying to secure a greater portion of the capital surplus with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
In the first senior bureaucratic reshuffle since Modi 2.0 took over, top bureaucrats across twelve ministries, departments and agencies, including secretaries of finance, power, telecommunications, parliamentary affairs, and textiles, among others were reshuffled by the government.
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The report on the RBI capital reserve transfer is expected to include a dissent note by Finance Secretary Subhash Garg, who is the Modi government’s representative on the committee. While the former central bank governor Bimal Jalan-led panel is in support of phased transfer of surplus, the government wants it at one-go.
The 1984 batch Rajasthan cadre IAS officer also headed the inter-ministerial committee on cryptocurrencies. The panel has recommended ban on trading of digital currencies and a jail-term of 10 years for any entity dealing in the virtual currencies. On Monday, the recommendations by the panel along with the draft legislation, Banning of Cryptocurrency & Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2019, were released on the website of the Department of Economic Affairs. The committee was formed by the government to look into the status of digital currencies in the country.