Sanjay Malhotra, a member of the 1990 Rajasthan group of the Indian Administrative Service, was nominated by the government on Wednesday as the department of revenue’s special service officer (OSD). According to a formal order, Malhotra will take over as finance secretary on November 30 when Tarun Bajaj, who is now serving in that capacity, retires.
As the top bureaucrat of the revenue department, one of the important branches of the Union, Malhotra, an IIT Kanpur alumni, would be in charge of finalising all tax-related issues associated with the impending Union budget for 2023–24. Minister of Finance. On February 1, 2023, the Budget is anticipated to be delivered to Parliament.
The Cabinet Appointments Committee ordered a shake-up of the bureaucracy, which included more than a dozen additional high-profile appointments (ACC). The Prime Minister and Home Minister Amit Shah make up the ACC.
Malhotra would be in charge of boosting tax revenue without going overboard at a time when the world economy is struggling and India is being burdened with ever-increasing subsidies for food, fuel, and fertiliser.
Estimates predict that India’s fertiliser subsidy alone would surpass $2.5 lakh crore in FY23, an increase of more than 138% from the Budget Estimate (BE). A one-time grant of Rs 22,000 crore, recently approved by the government, will be given to state-owned oil marketing firms that were impacted by cooking gas between June 2020 and June 2022. This is a 450% increase from the direct transfer of Rs 4000 crore from LPG subsidy in BE for 2022–2023 that was previously authorised. The government also added extra three months to its expanded free grain programme, ending on December 31, adding an additional $44,762 crores to the $80,000 crore it had previously spent in 2022–23.
Malhotra was Chairman and Managing Director of REC Ltd. until taking a position as Secretary in the Department of Financial Services (DFS), a division of the Union Ministry of Finance, on February 8, 2022.
According to the website of the Reserve Bank of India, he has a degree in computer engineering from IIT, Kanpur, and a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton University. Malhotra serves as secretary of DFS and is a director of the RBI Central Board.
“In a career spanning over 31 years, Shri Sanjay Malhotra has shown leadership and excellence while working in a variety of areas, including finance and tax, energy, industries, information technology, etc.
Tarun Bajaj, the finance secretary and an IAS Haryana cadre officer from the 1988 batch, has been in charge of the corporate affairs ministry since August 22, when the previous holder Rajesh Verma was named secretary to President Droupadi Murmu.
Since April 6, 2021, Bajaj has served as secretary of the Treasury. According to official records, he also served as secretary of economic affairs from April 30, 2020, until April 5, 2021.
Following the departure of his predecessor Ajay Bhushan Pandey on February 28, 2021—roughly one month after the Budget—Bajaj first got an extra charge from the income portfolio. Prior to this, he served as the Prime Minister’s Office’s Deputy Secretary from April 2015 to July 2017 and Additional Secretary from July 2017 to April 2020. (PMO).
