Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia designated Finance Secretary

NEW DELHI: The government on Monday named revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia as the new finance secretary. He takes over from Ashok Lavasa, who superannuated last month. Adhia, a 1981Gujarat-cadre Indian Administrative Services officer, is seen as one of the driving forces behind goods and services tax (GST).

He now faces the tough task of expeditiously addressing the niggles confronting the new tax regime, which he helped roll out on July 1. His handling of tricky issues of GST as secretary to the GST Council, the apex decision-making body on the new tax, has been widely appreciated.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved designating Adhia as the finance secretary, the order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training said. As per the convention, the senior most secretary in the finance ministry is designated as the finance secretary.


There are five departments under the finance ministry: expenditure, economic affairs, financial services, revenue and the Department of Investment and Public Asset management (DIPAM). Rajiv Kumar of the 1984 batch is the financial services secretary. Ajay Narayan Jha is the expenditure secretary and Neeraj Kumar Gupta is the secretary at DIPAM.

Both are 1982-batch IAS officers. Subhash Chandra Garg, a 1983 batch IAS officer, is the economic affairs secretary. Adhia joined the revenue department in 2015 from the Department of Financial Services.

He had come to Delhi as the secretary in the department of financial services soon after the Narendra Modi-led NDA took charge. His tenure at the revenue department has been credited with significant changes to make paying taxes easier.