Arvind Mayaram appointed new Finance Secretary

Screenshot_1Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram as the new Finance Secretary. Arvind Mayaram, a 1978 batch Rajasthan cadre IAS officer has been holding charge as the Economic Affairs Secretary since 2012.

[icon name=”icon-question-sign”]Who is a Finance Secretary?
A Finance Secretary is the senior-most IAS officer in the Finance Ministry. He coordinates the working of the 5 departments under the Finance Ministry.
The Ministry of Finance is composed of 5 departments, each headed by a Secretary who directly report to the Finance Minister:

  1. The Department of Economic Affairs
  2. The Department of Revenue
  3. The Department of Expenditure
  4. The Department of Financial Services
  5. The Department of Disinvestment

Now, “Finance Secretary” (FS) is a tag given to one of the 5 secretaries and it only denotes a first among equals. The other 4 secretaries do not report to the Finance Secretary; their files do not flow via him.
As a custom, the senior amongst of the 5 is made the Finance Secretary (FS) (where seniority is defined by the year of entry into the civil service and not age). Sometimes, none of the 5 is labelled as Finance Secretary (FS). Most finance secretaries have been IAS officers, but some of them were not IAS but Career Economists.


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