Dr Subrata Gupta, additional chief secretary (ACS) of both science and technology and biotechnology and north Bengal development departments under the government of West Bengal has been appointed as the secretary to the ministry of food processing industries under the central government.

The Appointment Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), under the ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions, department of personnel and training headed by the Prime Minister has appointed Dr Gupta, an IAS officer of 1990 (West Bengal cadre) batch, as the secretary to the ministry of food processing industries. He will take charge after the retirement of the present secretary Aneeta Praveen on 30 November.

The ACC has issued an order in this regard on 19 October.

He will probably be the first Bengali IAS officer of West Bengal cadre to head a ministry as its secretary after Sanjay Mitra, who was the Union defense secretary about eight years ago. Mr Mitra was the former chief secretary of West Bengal before he joined the ministry.

Dr Gupta, an alumnus of the IIT-Kharagpur, who had also his MBA degree from London, was shunted out to less important departments like state horticulture and food processing for more than three years since 2020 and science and technology and biotechnology by the state government at a time when junior bureaucrats were offered important portfolios triggering controversy in the bureaucracy in the state.

A section of bureaucrats, who are in the principal secretary rank and junior to the ACS post have been given more than one and even two important portfolios in different departments by the state government allegedly without considering experience and good track records in bureaucracy.

Dr Gupta has a good track record in terms of brilliant academic and professional performance.

Some retired and serving IAS officers felt that he could have done better for the development of the state if he was given important portfolios when the state government is facing strong criticism from the Opposition.

He had headed the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) as its managing director for four years since 2011 when the Left Front government had acquired land in Singur for the controversial small car project, and Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation Ltd (KMRCL) that had started construction work for the country’s first under-water Metro project from Howrah Maidan, when he was the MD of the KMRCL during 2012-13.