Exactly 15 days after Arunish Chawla filled his credentials as revenue secretary, the central government introduced another dramatic shift by appointing the country's most senior secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey as the new revenue department head. This transition occurred less than a month prior to the presentation of the union budget on February 2023.

Their rival Chawla was upgraded to the operational head in the department of investment and public asset management, that had previously been held by Pandey,,, “Shri Arunish Chawla, IAS (BH:92) will also hold additional charge of the post of secretary, department of public enterprises, ministry of finance, and secretary, ministry of culture till the appointment of a regular incumbent or until further orders, whichever is earlier,” a government order said citing decisions of the Appointments Committee of Centre (ACC).

Wednesday night's news released by the government communicated to the mass, “Shri Tuhin Kanta Pandey, IAS (OR:87) will continue to be designated as Finance Secretary [FS], or any other position.”

The ministry of finance assigns its highest ranking employee, who is given the title of finance secretary and in this case, Pandey, since August 28, 2016 has served as additional secretary and principal secretary. Pandey has a major role in amending the government’s disinvestment strategy since he has been secretary of DIPAM since October 22, 2019. The government also increased the role and focus of public sector enterprises in national wealth creation through furthering diluted its target disinvestment numbers from the RT20 Estimates .

During an interview with HT that followed the interim budget dialogue in February 2024, Pandey reiterated: “We are currently working on value creation so that values of public assets and enterprises are optimised. Some of the values may be disposed through monetization, some may come as incomes in the form of dividends. Even disposal should be linked with the appropriate value of the asset having regard to the circumstances. In the current environment, it would be foolish to sell if the market is down. There are times the market is rising, but still one has to assess what would be the best time to sell to realize the best returns. You have to take this call. Similar considerations apply regarding dividends, we also must see that the companies do not distribute all the profits but leave some for business development and expansion. So, the government will receive a dividend of some proportion of their net profit. This is the concept of integrated wealth management.”

A government official on condition of anonymity observed: “Dr Arunish Chawla’s is a bright officer and has a long career ahead, but for the coming budget there has to be someone with experience to go along with the weighty revenue-related matters.” Chawla was selected for the role after ACC, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to the appointment of then revenue secretary Sanjay Malhotra as governor of Reserve Bank of India for a tenure of three years starting from the 11th of December 2024.

“The gap caused at the time of the budget due to his unexpected elevation needed expertise,” said the official.

Chawla, who hails from the Bihar cadre and has been a member of the Indian Administrative Service since the 1992 batch, worked as secretary in the Department of Pharmaceuticals under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers until November 1, 2023. Chawla worked as the Secretary for the Department of Pharmaceuticals after working as the Metro Rail Project Patna’s Managing Director. He was also stationed abroad for the Department of Economic Affairs, where he worked with the International Monetary Fund as a Senior Economist. He served as the Economic Minister at the Indian Embassy in Washington, DC, as well as the Joint Secretary for the Ministry of Finance’s Expenditure Department. Additionally, he earned an MSc and DSc in economics from the London School of Economics.