Atanu Chakraborty, who was appointed economic affairs secretary in the finance ministry replacing incumbent Subhash Chandra Garg in a major bureaucratic reshuffle on Wednesday, is an old hand at the North Block.
The 1985 batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, Chakraborty is currently leading the government’s drive to mop up ₹1.05 trillion through skate sale as the secretary of the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) in the finance ministry from his office in CGO Complex. Chakraborty was instrumental in garnering ₹80,000 crore through disinvestment proceedings in 2018-19 after he took charge of the department in May 2018, when critics thought the target was not achievable.
Chakraborty, who is known as an honest and straight forward officer, had earlier served as a director and joint secretary in the finance ministry. Before becoming the DIPAM secretary, Chakraborty was the Director General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) in the petroleum ministry, a position generally meant for technocrats.
DGH is the oil ministry’s technical advisory arm for exploration and production that oversees multi-billion dollar exploration programmes of private and public sector companies where Chakraborty diligently handled often conflicting interests.
Chakraborty is an electronics and communication engineering graduate. He also has a post graduate diploma in business finance and an MBA from the UK.
In Gujarat, Chakraborty had served in several departments, including finance, ports, home and labour.
In his new role, he has to devise policy to revive economic growth which is at a five-year low and keep a check on fiscal deficit. More immediately, he may give a rethink on the dissent note submitted by his predecessor Garg to the Bimal Jalan committee set up to decide RBI’s economic capital framework and convince critics on the need for the government to borrow from overseas through sovereign bonds.
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