The Centre announced on Wednesday that Govind Mohan, who is the secretary of the Ministry of Culture, will be the next Home Secretary.
Mr Mohan has been appointed as an Officer on Special Duty in the Ministry of Home Affairs with immediate effect and will take over from the current Home Secretary, Ajay Kumar Bhalla, when his term ends on August 22.
Mr Bhalla, a 1984-batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, was appointed the Union Home Secretary in August 2019 and remained in the post for nearly half a decade.
"Mr Bhalla is one of the longest-serving Home Secretaries at the Centre. As per rules, he could not have given another extension," a senior official told NDTV.
The official said that the tenures of the Home Secretary, the director of the Intelligence Bureau, the CBI Director, Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Cabinet Secretary were fixed for two years but the Narendra Modi government amended this and added two more years, and then an additional year.
"So, if another extension was to be given to Mr Bhalla, another administrative order would be needed," he explained.
Mr Mohan, who turns 59 next month, is taking over at a crucial time, ahead of the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, which are likely to be announced soon. An electrical engineer from IIT(BHU) Varanasi, Mr Mohan has been the Union Culture Secretary since October 2021 and has also worked in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in the past – as a Joint Secretary from May to September 2018 and as Additional Secretary from September 2018 to September 2021
Hailing from Uttar Pradesh, he has been on Central Deputation since August 2017.
