Who is the Finance Secretary of India?
ARE we going to Budget 2011 without a Finance Secretary? The Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla retired on 31 st January and his successor is yet to be named. Sushama Nath, the current Expenditure Secretary is almost appointed. In fact some newspapers have carried stories that she has already taken over as Finance Secretary but the all important ACC clearance is yet to come or at least yet to be announced.
Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.Should a Finance Secretary who is closely associated with budget making be retired just 28 days before the budget? It happened exactly like this last year, when Revenue Secretary Bhide retired on 31 st January 2010. We had then questioned in our CobWeb - Dear FM, do you really think Revenue Secretary, privy to budget making, should retire on Jan 31st?
Though we were highly critical of the style of functioning of Bhide , we had suggested that he should be given a month's extension. But Pranab Babu is a seasoned administrator and he knows his babus .
There is an unconfirmed story doing the rounds about the extension to bureaucrats. It seems in his earlier tenure as Finance minister, a Chairman of the Board was to retire just before the budget. The Revenue Secretary took a proposal the FM to grant him an extension as he was closely associated with the budget and it would be difficult to bring out the budget without him. “Is he absolutely indispensable?”, asked the FM. “yes, sir”, replied the Secretary. “What will you do if he dies tomorrow?”, asked the FM. The Secretary got the message and continued his work with the budget.
Coming back to the present, though the fact is that a new Finance Secretary is yet to be announced officially, it is almost universally known that the FM has recommended Sushama Nath for the post and in the present scenario, the FM's recommendation is as good as appointment. Sushama Nath will be the first Lady Finance Secretary of the country, but she also has only two months to go before her retirement in March 2011. We understand that she is being given a two month extension.