Form of words:
New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the center of activity in the midst of the COVID pandemic, is set to lose five senior officers in one go. While one additional secretary is on study leave, four others, most of whom are joint secretary level officers, have been transferred or repatriated.
All movements are regular, but at particularly busy times for the ministry and comes within a short period of time after new health minister Mansukh Mandaviya took charge in July.
The five officers leaving the ministry are Joint Secretary Rekha Shukla, an IRS officer going back to her cadre, and Economic Adviser Arun Kumar, an Indian Economic Service officer returning to his cadre with promotion.
Joint Secretary Preeti Pant he was transferred Union Ministry of Women and Child Development earlier this month, while Joint Secretary Nipun Vinayak returned to his native cadre Maharashtra in the coming days.
Additional Secretary and Mission Director of National Health Mission (NHM) Meanwhile Vandana Gurnani is ready to go on study leave. Besides Pant, four others are scheduled to leave the ministry next month.
The departure comes at a time when Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal, who has been the government’s most famous face on COVID, is currently away from the ministry, nursing a fractured leg.
ThePrint reached the Health Ministry via email For a comment on the impact of multiple departures in a short period of time, but there was no response till the time of publication of this report.
A senior ministry official said the government “doesn’t stop working because of transfers”.
“Obviously, these posts will be filled soon. One person has already replaced Ms. Preeti Pant, others will join soon,” the official said.
Read also: Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya shows how he is different from Harsh Vardhan in 10 days
what are their roles
Gurnani has served as an ex-officio member of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization, which is directly involved in the decision-making process for COVID vaccination. However, as per the work allocation of the ministry, the covid vaccination is the contribution of another additional secretary, Manohar Agnani.
“You have to understand that, until recently, almost the entire ministry was involved in epidemic management in some capacity or the other. However, things have started to change in the last few months,” said a second ministry official on condition of anonymity..
as part of his responsibility care of vaccinationsGurnani has also been a key force in the ministry’s interactions with the states, particularly on the vaccination of COVID.
Among others, Shukla has been the brain behind the new crowdfunding initiative She also oversees the Ministry of Health’s Leprosy Program to treat rare diseases, the Non-Communicable Diseases Program and initiatives to combat vector-borne diseases such as dengue and malaria.
Pant was primarily responsible for the National Urban Health Mission, and his other responsibilities included the National Program Against Deafness and the Oral Health Program.
Vinayak is mainly responsible for medical education, various councils like pharmacy, dentistry etc come under his jurisdiction. Arun Kumar looks after NHM Finance and many other finance-related departments.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
Read also: Luv Agarwal, a ‘retarded’ IIT grad, Andhra IAS officer who is the face of India’s COVID fight
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