Senior IAS Officer Santosh Sarangi takes charge as SECI chief amid sudden leadership change

New Delhi: Senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Santosh Kumar Sarangi has been given the additional charge of Chairman and Managing Director (MD) of Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), reports Dynamite News correspondent. Currently, he is serving as the Secretary of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE). This decision has been taken at a time when IAS officer Rameshwar Prasad Gupta was suddenly removed from this post.

The union government has terminated the services of Rameshwar Prasad Gupta, chairman & managing director (CMD) of the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). His term was scheduled to end next month.

The sudden leave of Rameshwar Prasad Gupta (GJ:87) from the post of Chairman of SECI was an unexpected move. Though the reasons behind it are not clear, the change may have been made to give new vision and direction to the functioning of SECI.

During Gupta's tenure, SECI had completed many ambitious solar energy projects, and his strategies gave India a prominent place on the global stage in the field of solar energy. However, now under the new leadership, SECI can get new direction and momentum, which will help to further expand India's solar power generation capacity in the next few years.

Shri Santosh Kumar Sarangi is a 1994 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Odisha cadre. He holds the degrees of Master of Arts (Political Science) from University of Delhi and Master of Public Policy from Duke University, USA. In Odisha, apart from being District Magistrate in three districts, he has worked in various sectors such as Education, Tourism, Mining and Tribal Affairs, Science and Technology.

Between 2013 and 2019, he served as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India and handled responsibilities as Chairman, APEDA and Chairman, Tea Board. He has also served as Additional Secretary to Government of India in the Department of School Education and Literacy under the Ministry of Education and also held the charge of Chairman, NCTE, New Delhi.