Ajay Kumar Bhalla, an IAS officer of the 1984 batch who belongs to the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, has been chosen as the next Union Home Secretary.

The appointment

Bhalla, who is now Power Secretary at the Centre, has been made Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the Ministry of Home Affairs with immediate effect. A new home secretary customarily serves as OSD alongside the incumbent for at least a month to allow a smooth handover. The present Home Secretary, Rajiv Gauba, is due to retire on August 31, and Bhalla’s fixed two-year term will run until August 2021.

A Delhi resident, Bhalla holds an MBA from the University of Queensland in Australia. He takes charge at a critical moment, as Home Minister Amit Shah, who became Union Home Minister in May 2019, has said he intends to act decisively to “solve” the Kashmir problem.

Experience in Assam and at the Centre

In Assam, Bhalla handled portfolios such as home, general administration, transport, commerce and drinking water. At the Centre he has served in the shipping, commerce and power ministries and with the India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO). His Assam background is expected to be the most useful, since the government’s two biggest challenges are Jammu and Kashmir and Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC), and Shah wants the NRC implemented properly.

In the power ministry, officials say Bhalla became one of the most trusted officers after the successful rollout of the Saubhagya scheme, a flagship programme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Earlier, he had drawn the attention of the BJP leadership for his part in coal block auctions during the Modi government’s first term.

The coal years

Bhalla was in the coal ministry in 2012 when a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report that leaked out put the loss from coal block allocations at Rs 1.86 lakh crore, a finding that rattled the Congress-led UPA government. He drew the Supreme Court’s anger for showing a draft CBI status report to Ashwani Kumar, then the law minister, and was one of two joint secretaries in the ministry who were named. He later played a central role in India’s first coal block auction in 2015.

Former Coal Secretary Anil Swarup praised him on Twitter, describing him as “one of the finest officers I had the privilege to work with”. An officer from the Assam-Meghalaya cadre said Bhalla had long been seen as effective and efficient.

After PK Sinha, Bhalla is the second officer to move from the post of power secretary to the top bureaucratic offices in North and South Block. He also follows Power Minister RK Singh, who was home secretary in North Block until 2013.

See also: Political leaders | Election news

Originally published on 25 July 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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