Higher education secretary Deepti Gaur Mukherjee gets additional charge as UGC chairman

The ministry of education has assigned higher education secretary Deepti Gaur Mukherjee with the additional charge of the University Grants Commission’s chairman. The decision by the government comes days after Mukherjee was appointed as the higher education secretary.

According to an official notice of the education ministry, “Ms. Deepti Gaur Mukerjee, Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Member, University Grants Commission (UGC) is hereby entrusted with the additional charge of the post of Chairman, UGC.”

Mukherjee’s additional charge as the UGC chairman took effect on August 12 and will remain until a regular chairman is appointed, she remains to be a UGC member or until further orders, the notice read.

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On August 11, Mukherjee, former senior bureaucrat, and an IAS, was appointed as the secretary, department of higher education, ministry of education.

Her appointment came after a top-level bureaucratic reshuffle approved by the appointments committee of the cabinet (ACC).

Notably, Naresh Pal Gangwar was appointed the higher education secretary by the government. However, due to a controversy over allegations of Rs 1.16 crore corruption involving his family in government horticulture subsidies, he did not join the department.

Mukherjee is a 1993-batch IAS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre. She was appointed as the secretary of higher education, succeeding Vineet Joshi, IAS.

Joshi has now been appointed as the secretary of the ministry of Panchayati Raj.