A leadership shift reshapes India’s telecom and energy corridors as Amit Agarwal takes charge of DoT, while senior bureaucrats move into key strategic roles.
On Thursday, Mr Amit Agarwal was appointed as the new Secretary of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC).
Following this, the former DoT Secretary, Mr Neeraj Mittal, was transferred to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, as Mr Pankaj Jain, its Secretary, demitted office to take over as Member Secretary of the Eighth Central Pay Commission (CPC). Jain was recently nominated for this role, although his superannuation is due on 31 December 2025.
Prior to this role, Agarwal, an IIT Kanpur graduate and a 1993-batch Chhattisgarh cadre of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), served as the Secretary of the Department of Pharmaceuticals from December 2024. Before that, he was also the Chief Executive Officer of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
He fulfilled the role of Additional Secretary in the Ministries of Finance and Electronics and Information Technology (MietY).
He had also held several key positions in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Outgoing Secretary Mittal had earlier taken charge of DoT on September 1, 2023. He also served as the chairman of the Digital Communications Commission, then. During his tenure, BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) saw a turnover, deploying nearly 100,000 4G sites based on homegrown technology.
