After putting on hold appointments of private secretaries to some Union Ministers, including Home Minister Rajnath Singh, the government on Wednesday gave the nod to appoint senior IAS officer Rajeev Topno as private secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Mr. Topno is already working as a Director in the PMO and belongs to the 1996 batch of the Gujarat cadre, according to an official order.
Among other appointments are those of Sameer Verma and B.V.R.C. Purushottam, both IAS officers, as private secretary to Uma Bharti, Minister for Water Resources and Ganga Rejuvenation, and M. Venkaiah Naidu, Parliamentary Affairs Minister, respectively. Their tenure will be coterminous with that of the ministers.
The name of senior IPS officer Alok Singh, who had served as private secretary to the former External Affairs Minister, Salman Khurshid, and was proposed to be appointed as private secretary to the Home Minister has also remained on hold, sources said.
Mr. Modi had told his Cabinet colleagues to avoid proposing names of officers who had served closely with ministers in the UPA regime.
The government has asked all ministries to take prior approval of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) before appointing private secretary and Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to a Minister.
