By IANS,
New Delhi : After six consecutive years in the petroleum ministry, M.S. Srinivasan retires Thursday as its Secretary.
Srinivasan’s tenure in the last month has been at the crosshair of the government’s new ally, the Samajwadi Party, that has targeted the petroleum ministry.
The party first demanded a windfall tax on profits of petroleum companies, and then criticised the ministry for granting an export-oriented unit status to a Mukesh Ambani-promoted refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat.
An IIT-Chennai alumni, Srinivasan had also done a master’s in public administration from Harvard University. A 1971 batch officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, he has been in the ministry since November 2002, when he joined as additional secretary.
Earlier in the late ’90s, he was a director in the petroleum ministry.
Srinivasan hands over charge to 58-year-old Ram Sharan Pandey, whose official tenure as Secretary begins Aug 1. Pandey, a Nagaland cadre officer, comes from the steel ministry, which had recently to grapple with the effect of galloping steel prices.
Pandey will have to deal with the record under-recoveries of public oil and gas majors, which have to sell fuel to the Indian public at a subsidised rate – despite the sky-rocketing price of oil in the global market.