Kovind gets new secy, press officer

Sanjay Kothari, chairman of the Public Enterprises Selection Board, has been appointed as the secretary to President-elect Ram Nath Kovind.

Kovind takes over as the 14th President from Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday.

An order from the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), issued late on Friday, said that senior Gujarat-cadre forest service officer Bharat Lal would be the joint secretary at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Senior journalist Ashok Malik will be Kovind’s press secretary.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved these appointments for two years.

A 1978-batch IAS officer of the Haryana cadre, Kothari retired last June as DoPT secretary. Having served in various positions at the state and central levels, he was appointed to the helm of the government’s head-hunting agency Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) in November 2016.

A 1988-batch officer, Lal is currently the Resident Commissioner of the Gujarat government in Delhi.

He was posted for a brief period at the Prime Minister’s Office when Modi took over in May 2014.

The government also effected a major bureaucratic reshuffle that saw 35 officers appointed as secretaries at various central departments.

Ali Raza Rizvi is named CMD, National Mineral Development Corporation. He is currently joint secretary in the Ministry of Commerce.

Narendra Nath Sinha, currently working at his cadre state Jharkhand, has been appointed managing director, National Highways Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited.