A day after he was shunted out as Finance Secretary, senior IAS officer Subhash Chandra Garg on Thursday announced that he had sought voluntary retirement.
The government on Wednesday announced that Mr. Garg was being transferred from his position as Finance Secretary and Economic Affairs Secretary to take over as Power Secretary.
“Handed over charge of Economic Affairs today. Learnt so much in the Finance Ministry and Economic Affairs Dept. Will take charge in Power Ministry tomorrow. Have also applied for Voluntary Retirement with effect from 31st October...,” Mr. Garg tweeted.
Sources close to the development said Mr. Garg had become the “fall guy” after the government faced flak from RSS-affiliated groups over the proposed issue of overseas sovereign bonds.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the scheme in the budget earlier this month.
Source of friction
It is widely believed among Finance Ministry officials and watchers that Mr. Garg was a key source of the recent friction between the Ministry and regulators such as the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
While members of the Jalan Committee looking into the issue of the RBI’s reserves and how much should be transferred to the Centre asked Mr. Garg to tone down his dissent note on the Committee’s report, this was apparently to no avail.
Similarly, it is believed that Mr. Garg was instrumental in denying SEBI’s repeated pleas against transferring 75% of its reserves to the government. The Finance Bill 2019 was passed in both Houses of Parliament without the government changing this provision. Mr. Garg’s voluntary retirement, if approved, will kick in about 15 months before his scheduled superannuation in October 2020.
Mr Garg was designated as Finance Secretary in March this year following the superannuation of A.N. Jha. He held this post in addition to that of Secretary Economic Affairs, which he held since June 2017.