In a surprise move, the Union government on Monday appointed former commerce secretary B V R Subrahmanyam as the chief executive officer of the Niti Aayog, succeeding Parameswaran lyer, who has been appointed as an executive director at the World Bank.
Iyer, who was appointed for a two-year tenure with effect from July 2022, would demit Niti Aayog after a short stint of about eight months.
Subrahmanyam has been appointed as Niti Aayog CEO for two years while Iyer has been appointed in the World Bank for three years.
Subrahmanyam was a 1987 batch IAS officer of the Chhattisgarh cadre and a native of Andhra Pradesh. He has an engineering degree and a management degree from London Business School.
He is a widely experienced bureaucrat having worked as chief secretary of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, additional chief secretary (home), Chhattisgarh and joint secretary in the PMO between 2004–2008 and March 2012–March 2015, serving under Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi.
Sources said Subrahmanyam with his experience in commerce ministry would bring the much-needed expertise to the country’s top think tank as India plays an increasingly assertive role in the global geopolitical political-economic landscape.
Iyer, a 1981-batch IAS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, is a well-known sanitation specialist, and is best known for spearheading Modi government’s flagship scheme, the Swachh Bharat Mission between 2016 and 2020.
Iyer had taken voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service in 2009. He had also worked as a senior rural water sanitation specialist at the United Nations.