Ajay Seth, a senior bureaucrat, has been appointed as India’s new Finance Secretary on Monday, according to an official order released by the Personnel Ministry. Seth, a 1987-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from the Karnataka cadre, has been serving as the Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs since 2021. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved his new designation as Finance Secretary. He succeeds Tuhin Kanta pandey, following the promotion of Pandey’s recent appointment as the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
In compliance with established convention, the senior-most secretary within the Union Finance Ministry is typically designated as the Finance Secretary. Seth, with his extensive experience in economic policy and governance, now takes over from Pandey. Earlier in March, Seth was also assigned the additional responsibility of Secretary, Department of Revenue, as per official order.
Seth’s academic credentials include a BTech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Roorkee and an MBA from Ateneo de Manila University. His career spans over three decades, during which he has developed expertise in areas such as public finance, taxation, and social sector administration. He is also acknowledged for his contributions to the transformation of Karnataka’s commercial tax administration, for which he was honored with the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration in 2013.
Out of his career of 33 years, he has been in the public finance and taxation domains for 18 years and in the social sector and urban transport & infrastructure domains for almost 3 years each in different positions in Government of India, Government of Karnataka and Asian Development Bank.
