This will be Pardeshi’s third stint with the UN. He had also worked for UN from 2002-2007 and 2008-2010.

Praveen Pardeshi, former BMC commissioner, was on Tuesday deputed on foreign service to the United Nations (UN). The appointments committee of the Union Cabinet approved his deputation.

Pardeshi, a 1985-batch officer, has been appointed the Global Programme Coordinator for the Defeat-NCD Partnership under the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, which is anchored in Geneva, for 11 months.

Senior bureaucrat Bhushan Gagrani, a 1990-batch IAS officer, will replaced Pardeshi as the new state urban development department secretary. Gagrani had previously served as principal secretary to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, but was relieved of the charge in February and had been without a full-time position since.

Established in 2018, the Defeat-NCD Partnership is a “multi-stakeholder partnership to help tackle premature death, sickness, disability, and the associated social and economic impact of selected non-communicable diseases (NCDs)”.

Pardeshi, who was seen as being among the most influential bureaucrats during the Devendra Fadnavis regime, was moved out from the BMC chief’s post on May 9, after a central team complained about certain drawbacks in the Covid-19 control strategy.

This will be Pardeshi’s third stint with the UN. He had also worked for UN from 2002-2007 and 2008-2010. On July 8, Uddhav-led general administration department had first approached Centre’s Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) with a proposal to allow Pardeshi to proceed on foreign deputation. While approving the proposal on Tuesday, the Centre also relaxed the ceiling of seven years of foreign assignment for a civil servant. In a separate order, the DoPT approved positing of Pune Collector Naval Kishore Ram, a 2008-batch officer, as a deputy secretary in the PMO for a four-year stint.