Days After Naming Naresh Pal Gangwar as Higher Education Secretary, Govt Replaces Him With New Officer

The Union government has reshuffled several top bureaucrats, keeping animal husbandry secretary Naresh Pal Gangwar in his post and finding a new higher education department secretary.

The Wire Staff

The Union government has reshuffled several top bureaucrats, keeping animal husbandry secretary Naresh Pal Gangwar in his post and finding a new higher education department secretary.

days after naming naresh pal gangwar as higher education secretary govt replaces him with new officer

Central Secretariat, New Delhi. Credit: Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

New Delhi: The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has appointed IAS officer Deepti Gaur Mukerjee is the new higher education secretary, revising its earlier decision to appoint Naresh Pal Gangwar, secretary, department of animal husbandry. Gangwar's family availed subsidies worth Rs 1.16 crore to grow cucumbers from the department he heads.

Mukerjee will replace Vineet Joshi in the post of higher education secretary instead of Gangwar, who was picked for the post on July 23 during a nationwide student protest over NEET paper leaks. According to the DoPT, the latest decision was taken "in partial modification" of the July 23 order.

Gangwar's appointment was controversial as it came barely a month after the Indian Express had reported that his wife, mother and son availed of Rs 1.16 crore subsidy for commercial farming. The subsidy was managed by the animal husbandry department he heads.

The Wire had reported that Union minister of state for agriculture and farmers welfare, Bhagirath Choudhary, who chairs the National Horticulture Board, under which this subsidy functions, also secured Rs 99.6 lakh as “50%” subsidy in 2026. However, Choudhary returned the subsidy amount last month.

Mukerjee, a 1993 batch Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS officer, was so far the secretary in the ministry of corporate affairs.

Since Joshi never vacated the post of higher education secretary, Gangwar had not taken charge as the top bureaucrat in the department. He will remain in the animal husbandry department.

However, the government had also picked a successor to Gangwar, IAS officer from Odisha Sushil Kumar Lohani. He has now been appointed chairman of the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI). The IWAI's existing head, Sunil Paliwal, has moved to head the youth affairs department.

Closing the loop on the rejig is IAS officer Pallavi Jain Govil, who has been moved from youth affairs to corporate affairs, the position vacated by Mukherjee.

This article went live on August eleventh, two thousand twenty six, at fifteen minutes past eight in the evening.

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