Prime Minister’s Office divides work into 15 verticals

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has divided its work into 15 Cells and distributed the responsibility of each of the cells among its five top officers under a newly devised system.

The Cells or Verticals will report either to Principal Secretary to PM, P.K. Mishra, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Principal Advisor to PM, P.K. Sinha, and the two Advisors to PM, Amarjeet Sinha, and Bhaskar Khulbe, in a neat distribution of duties effective from April 4.

The ‘human resource’ cell handling all appointments, Law and Justice Ministry, personnel, anti-corruption unit, and cabinet secretariat, will report to Mishra while the ‘foreign and security’ cell comprising defence, external affairs, space, atomic energy, NSCS, and NTRO will report to NSA.


Under P.K. Sinha’s ambit will be six verticals, namely “Technology, Governance 1, Resources, Infrastructure, Finance and Economy” comprising ministries and subjects like Home Affairs, Aadhaar, Electronics & IT, Petroleum, Power, Mines, Railways, Roads, Civil Aviation, Shipping, Finance, NITI Aayog, Steel, Labour, and Commerce. Sinha was earlier the Cabinet Secretary.

Amarjeet Sinha, the former rural development secretary, has been given the charge of four cells like “Social, Welfare, Agriculture and Rural” which comprise the important ministries and subjects like Health, Rural Development, and Panchayati Raj, consumer affairs, tourism, culture, and human resource development. Khulbe will have the ‘Governance 2, administration and the monitoring and coordination’ verticals reporting to him, which comprise the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, Parliamentary Affairs, RTI as well as the Delivery Monitoring Unit.

Khulbe has also been given the charge of all states and union territories, with the respective additional and joint secretaries looking at the various states reporting to Khulbe regarding the states. Khulbe, before being appointed as Advisor to PM, had served as Secretary to the PM.