Vikram Dev Dutt appointed Air India chief, Manish Kumar Gupta is new Vice Chairman of DDA

Senior bureaucrat Vikram Dev Dutt was on Tuesday appointed as the new chief of the loss-making national carrier Air India, which is slated to be handed over to the Tata Sons.

Dutt's appointment was part of a senior-level bureaucratic reshuffle effected by the Centre in which Manish Kumar Gupta was appointed as Vice Chairman of Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and Pankaj Agrawal as the new Director General (Acquisition) in the Defence Ministry.

Dutt, a 1993-batch IAS officer of AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territory) cadre, is at present Principal Secretary (Tourism) in the Delhi government, and has been promoted and appointed as the Air India chairman and managing director (CMD) in the rank and pay of Additional Secretary, an order issued by the Personnel Ministry said.

Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Bansal was holding additional charge of Air India CMD. It was not immediately clear whether appointment of Dutt was an indication of a possible delay in handing over of the national carrier to the tata Sons. The Centre had in October last year accepted Tata Sons bid of Rs 18,000 crore to acquire 100 per cent of the debt-laden state-run carrier.

As per the conditions arrived in October, all formalities of handover should be completed within eight weeks but the date can be mutually extended by the buyer and seller which is what is being done in this case.

In other appointments, Gupta, a 1991-batch IAS officer and at present Principal Commissioner in the DDA, was made the Vice Chairman of the Authority.

Ashish Srivastava, Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Women and Child Development will now be Additional Secretary and Financial Adviser, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.

Hari Ranjan Rao, Additional Secretary, Department of Telecommunications has been appointed as Administrator, Universal Service Obligation Fund, Department of Telecommunications.

V L Kantha Rao, Additional Secretary and Director General (Acquisition), Ministry of Defence has been named as Additional Secretary, Department of Telecommunications in place of Rao.

Pankaj Agrawal, Additional Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, will be new Additional Secretary and Director General (Acquisition), Ministry of Defence, the order said.

Santosh Kumar Sarangi, a 1994-batch IAS officer of Odisha cadre, will be Director General, Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce & Industry.

He is currently Additional Secretary in Department of School Education and Literacy.

Chanchal Kumar, a 1992 batch IAS officer of Bihar cadre, has been appointed as Managing Director, National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd, it said.

Kumar is at present principal secretary to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish KUmar.

B V Umadevi, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, has been appointed as Additional Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs.

Anuradha Thakur, Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat has been appointed as Additional Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

Shashank Goel and Shailesh Kumar Singh have been appointed as Additional Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment and Development Commissioner, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, respectively.

Naresh Pal Gangwar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change will be Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, the order said. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has also approved extension in the central deputation tenure of Ashutosh Jindal, Additional Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat for a period of one year beyond 16.02.2022 i.e. upto 16.02.2023, it said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)