New Delhi: A union minister penning an article of admiration for his subordinate bureaucrat retiring this month end is quite rare. Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, a 1981 batch Gujarati IAS officer of Gujarat cadre, got that admiration on Saturday from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Though Jaitley has focused on the government”s immense gains from Dr Adhia, he has in a way admitted how the Modi government depended so much on the bureaucrats like him all these years for ideas often credited to the Prime Minister.
Modi brought Adhia to Delhi along with him in 2014 and he is the man behind a score of ideas as Jaitley revealed, be it Mudra Yojana, demonetisation, anti-black money measures, various social security programmes or putting an end to the income tax officials’ physical interface with the assessees.
Jaitley mentions Adhia’s passion for spirituality and Yoga, but he omits his role in persuading Modi to put Yoga on the international map. Maybe, he did not want Modi lose credit for the idea of Yoga by accepting role of Adhia. Not many know that Adhia’s doctorate is in Yoga. He is MCom in business management.
The Government wanted to use his capability and experience in some alternate capacity, but Jaitley said he made it known earlier this year that he would not work for a single day after the 30th of November 2018 when he completes 60 years and retires. “His time thereafter belongs to his favourite passion and of course his son,” writes Jaitley.
Dr Adhia was in the Finance Ministry for the last four years as revenue secretary, as secretary, financial services and lastly as the finance secretary. Jaitley lauds him for showing his leadership in the financial services in implementation of various social security programmes through banking services as also his contributions in the success of the Mudra Yojana.
His signatures are all over a series of statements issued by the finance ministry on the demonetisation. Jaitley credits him for the follow-up after demonetisation in detecting the large cash depositors and making them accountable as no mean challenge. Jaitley writes that “the campaign against black money, both within and outside the country was the initial highlight of the revenue department” that Adhia headed.
Jaitley also praised the role Dr Adhia played in implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in drafting rules and fixing tariffs and subsequent rate reductions in smoothening of the rough edges in a record time. “It was his efforts supported by his team of officers of Centre and state governments, which made it possible to hit the deadline of 1st July 2017.”
Noting that Adhia”s tenure saw an exponential increase in tax base and the tax realisations, Jaitley praised the execution skill of the officer “with calm and professionalism.” He said Adhia was “unquestionably a highly competent, disciplined, no-nonsense civil servant and of course, with impeccable integrity.”As per some reports, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey has been named as Adhia’s successor as the revenue secretary.