Former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, who opted for voluntary retirement from service after being shunted to the power ministry, said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked for and insisted on his transfer from the ministry of finance in June 2019, immediately after she took office.
"Mrs. Nirmala Sitaraman has a very different personality, knowledge endowment, skill-set and approach for economic policy issues and also for the officers working with her. It became quite apparent very early that working with her was going to be quite difficult and it might not be conducive to undertaking necessary reforms for the attainment of the objective of building a $10 trillion economy of India," Garg wrote in his blog explain the reasons of his voluntary retirement.
"She, for reasons not very clearly known to me, came with some pre-conceived notions about me. She did not seem to have confidence in me. She was not quite comfortable working with me as well," Garg added.
"Mrs. Sitaraman asked for and insisted on my transfer from the Ministry of Finance in June 2019 itself, within one month of her taking over as FM," he wrote.
The Former Finance Secretary claims that there were also "serious differences" that developed on some key issues like economic capital framework of RBI, package for dealing with problems of non-banks, etc, which not only strained their personal relationship but also made their official relationship "quite unproductive".
"The budget was due to be presented on 5th July, within 35 days of her taking over as Finance Minister. Despite quite a few episodes of acrimony which had made the working environment unpleasant, I decided that I would do everything possible to see that budget was not harmed and it was delivered on time," he wrote in his blog.
However, in the month of June 2019, much before the Budget was presented, Garg had "made up his mind" to take voluntary retirement from the service.
"Dr. P. K. Mishra, then Additional Principal Secretary, who oversaw appointments and transfers in the PMO, asked me to come over for a chat on 18th July. We had discussed my relationship with Mrs. Sitharaman on a few occasions before as well. Both of us agreed that the best course would be for me to make way for the new FM to ‘function smoothly.’" Garg wrote.
"Dr. Mishra was quite generous and gracious. He offered me to choose any job in the government or outside the government in regulatory bodies or elsewhere. I thanked him and the Prime Minister profusely."
He has mentioned in the note that he could have become the longest-serving finance secretary if he had held the post until his superannuation in October 2020.
Garg was a 1983-batch IAS officer of the Rajasthan cadre who was appointed secretary, economic affairs, in the Ministry of Finance in June 2017 and was designated finance secretary in March 2019.
In his note, Garg thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and current Principal Secretary to the PM P.K. Mishra for selecting him for the post of the executive director, World Bank, and as secretary, Department of Economic Affairs.