(FE)
Financial services secretary Rajiv Kumar will be the next finance secretary after Subhash Chandra Garg was transferred to the power ministry last week, according to an official order on Tuesday. Kumar, a 1984-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Jharkhand cadre, joined the department of financial services in September 2017 when the bad loan crisis was nearing its peak. Under him, the DFS, had in October 2017, announced an unprecedented Rs 2.11 lakh crore capital infusion into NPA-hit state-run banks over two years through FY19. The idea was to help the weak ones meet regulatory capital requirement while enabling the stronger ones to support economic growth through increased lending. The amount was later raised.
The government also ushered in consolidation in the public-sector banking space by amalgamating Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank in a bid to create only a few large state-run banks with scale and strong balance sheets.
