Vikram Dev Dutt assumed charge as the secretary of the Ministry of Coal on Monday.
Dutt is a 1993-batch IAS officer of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre, and has previously served as the Director General of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
He succeeds V L Kantha Rao, who currently serves as the Secretary of the Ministry of Mines and holds additional charge of the Ministry of Coal. Prior to Rao, Amrit Lal Meena served as the Secretary of the Ministry of Coal.
The Ministry of Coal has been posting positive numbers in the recent past recording a spike in the coal production reflecting a notable growth of 2.49% YoY achieving 68.94 Million Ton (MT).
Coal dispatch also saw notable growth in September reaching 73.37 MT, compared to 70.31 MT during the same period in FY’ 23-24, with a growth of 4.35%.
Government has also appointed V Umashankar as the new secretary of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
Umashankar is a 1993 batch IAS officer from the Haryana cadre, and has previously served as principal secretary to both former Haryana Chief Minister M L Khattar and current Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini.
Further, Tanmay Kumar, a Rajasthan cadre IAS officer, has been designated as the next secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change. Kumar.
He is currently special secretary in the same ministry, and will succeed Leena Nandan when she retires at the end of December.
In another significant move, Subrata Gupta, a 1990 batch IAS officer from the West Bengal cadre, has been appointed as the new secretary of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, effective December 1. Gupta is set to replace Anita Praveen, who will retire on November 30.