NEW DELHI: IAS officer Vikas Anand has been appointed as Private Secretary to Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju.
Anand, a 2002-batch IAS officer of Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre, is presently with the Ministry of Power.
His appointment will be coterminous with the tenure of the minister or till further instructions, according to an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
Earlier, the Prime Minister's Office declined the appointment of Abhinav Kumar as PS to Rijiju as he had worked in the personal staff of Shashi Tharoor when he was a minister in the previous UPA government, official sources said.
The Narendra Modi government has decided not to appoint those officers as PS to ministers who had worked in the personal staff of ministers under the previous dispensation, they said.
The government has also appointed PSs to the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, and Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot, according to official orders issued by DoPT.
Sanjeev Hans, a 1997-batch IAS officer of Bihar cadre, has been appointed as PS to Paswan while Manoj Kumar Arora, a 1990-batch Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise) officer, will be PS to Gandhi.
E Ramesh Kumar, a 1999-batch Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS officer, has been appointed as PS to Gehlot.