Govind Mohan appointed as next Union Home Secretary, to take over from Ajay Bhalla on August 22

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) on Wednesday appointed Culture secretary Govind Mohan as the next Union Home Secretary.

Mohan will replace Ajay Bhalla as new Home Secretary on August 22.

He is currently posted as Officer on Special Duty in Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

“The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Shri Govind Mohan, IAS (SK:89), Secretary, Ministry of Culture as Officer on Special Duty in the Ministry of Home Affairs with immediate effect,” said a notification by Deepti Umashankar, Secretary, Appointments Committee of the Cabinet & Establishment Officer.

“The officer will take over as Home Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs vice Shri Ajay Kumar Bhalla, IAS (AM: 84) on completion of his tenure on 22.08.2024.”

Bhalla, a 1984-batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, was appointed as Union Home Secretary in August 2019.

Mohan is an electrical engineer from BHU-IIT Varanasi. He had two stints in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in the past, said reports.

Last week, Finance Secretary TV Somanathan was appointed as new Cabinet Secretary and he will assume responsibilities of his new role on August 30 after Rajiv Gauba's tenure.

Gauba was given a one-year extension last year and is the country's longest-serving Cabinet Secretary.

Somanathan, a 1987 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Tamil Nadu cadre, served as Joint Secretary and Additional Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office under Modi for a little over two years between 2015 and 2017.

Later, he served in his cadre state before being appointed as the Expenditure Secretary in December 2019.

Somanathan (now 59 years) was designated as the Finance Secretary in April 2021.

He is a qualified Chartered Accountant (CA) and Company Secretary (CS), he knows five languages -- English, French, Hausa (spoken in select parts of Africa), Hindi and Tamil, according to official records.

The veteran bureaucrat also has a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in economics from Calcutta University.