The government has appointed finance and revenue secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey as the new chairman of the capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).
He was initially appointed as the Sebi chief for a period of three years from the date of assumption of charge. Pandey, a 1987-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Odisha cadre, will be taking over the reins of Sebi from Madhabi Puri Buch, who will be demitting office today (28 February 2025).
The past two months have been very ‘unsettling’ for Pandey, who was quietly implementing the government’s disinvestment policies till the first week of January 2025.
Three weeks before the Budget, Pandey was called in as a replacement for Arunish Chawla to head the revenue department, where he oversaw one of the biggest Budget announcements of the year – the big tax relief to the common man.
Pandey will join in Mumbai his predecessor, former revenue secretary Sanjay Malhotra, who was appointed the RBI governor in December last year.
Before his shit to the North Block, Pandey held the charge of Secretary of three Departments -- Department of Investment & Public Asset Management (DIPAM), since 24 October 2019, Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) since 01 August 2024 and Department of Personnel and Training since 04 November 2024. Both the DIPAM and DPE function under the Ministry of Finance.
A Masters in Economics from Panjab University, Chandigarh and an MBA from the University of Birmingham (UK), Pandey has also held many significant positions in the Union Government and State Government of Odisha, in addition to serving a stint in the Regional Office of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).
In the Union government, his previous positions included joint secretary, planning commission (now NITI Aayog), joint secretary, cabinet secretariat, and deputy secretary in the Ministry of Commerce.
Pandey also served as administrative head in the Departments of Health, General Administration, Commercial Taxes, Transport and Finance in the Odisha government. He also served as Executive Director of Odisha State Finance Corporation and Managing Director of Odisha Small Industries Corporation.