Centre transfers Higher Education Secy Vineet Joshi amid NEET row; Naresh Pal Gangwar takes over

The Centre on Thursday transferred Higher Education Secretary Vineet Joshi to the Ministry of Panchayati Raj and appointed Naresh Pal Gangwar as his successor, as part of a wider secretary-level bureaucratic reshuffle, amid the ongoing scrutiny over alleged irregularities in competitive examinations, including the NEET paper leak.

According to an order issued by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), Joshi, a 1992-batch IAS officer of the Manipur cadre, has been appointed Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj. He will succeed Vivek Bharadwaj upon his superannuation on July 31.

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Naresh Pal Gangwar, a 1994-batch IAS officer of the Rajasthan cadre and Secretary, Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, has been appointed Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education. Sukhil Kumar Lohani, a 1994-batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, has been appointed Officer on Special Duty in the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying and will take over as Secretary after Gangwar assumes his new role.

The reshuffle comes at a time when the Ministry of Education is facing sustained public and political scrutiny over alleged paper leaks and irregularities in competitive examinations. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has been leading protests at Delhi's Jantar Mantar, demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and sweeping reforms to the examination system following the alleged NEET paper leak and the reported suicides of more than 20 students.

The ACC order also announced several other secretary-level appointments. K. Srinivas, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, has been appointed Secretary, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), while Piyush Goyal, Secretary, Ministry of Mines, has been named Secretary General of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Keshav Chandra will succeed Goyal as Secretary, Ministry of Mines.

Following the recent bifurcation of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, D. Thara has been appointed Secretary, Department of Capital Development, while Satendra Singh has been named Secretary, Department of Urban Development.

The government also appointed T.K. Anil Kumar as Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, Chandra Bhushan Kumar as Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Suchindra Misra as Secretary, National Commission for Minorities, Archana Varma as Mission Director, National Water Mission, in the rank and pay of Secretary, and B. Rajender as Director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, also in the rank and pay of Secretary.

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The ACC additionally approved in-situ upgradation to the rank and pay of Secretary for Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner; Santosh Kumar Yadav, Chairman, National Highways Authority of India; Rajeev Singh Thakur, Adviser, NITI Aayog; and Dilip Kumar, Director General (Training), Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.