Road Transport and Highways Secretary Sanjay Mitra has been appointed as the new Defence secretary in a top-level bureaucratic reshuffle announced by the government on Wednesday.
He will take over after the present incumbent, G Mohan Kumar, completes his tenure on 24 May, an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.
The Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) decided Mitra would till then function as an Officer on Special Duty in the Defence Ministry.
Mitra, 58, a 1982 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the West Bengal cadre, will have a fixed two-year tenure. This will be his first posting in the Defence Ministry.
He was appointed Road Transport and Highways secretary in December 2015. Mitra, who is from Delhi, was then the chief secretary in West Bengal.
He also served a seven-year stint (November 2004 to July 2011) as a joint secretary in the Prime Minister's Office of Manmohan Singh.
(With inputs from PTI)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)