Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha (Files)
Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha got a one-year extension on Monday. His term will now end on June 12, 2019. The Cabinet Appointments Committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the decision and accordingly issued an order on Monday, giving Sinha a total four-year term. Sinha was appointed head of the country’s bureaucracy in 2015. With this, the NDA government also chose to appoint only one Cabinet Secretary in its five-year tenure. Sinha’s predecessor Ajit Seth was appointed by the UPA government in 2011 and remained in office for four years, as did KM Chandrashekhar, who was appointed before Seth. The extension of Sinha, a 1977 batch IAS officer of UP cadre, was in the works since the beginning of the month. Earlier, the name of Hasmukh Adhia was doing the rounds in the bureaucratic circles as a prospective successor to Sinha. Adhia retires in November this year.