Apurva Chandra assumes charge as secretary – Ministry of Information and Broadcasting

Chandra has also worked as Director General (acquisition) in the Ministry of Defence.

Apurva Chandra assumed charge as secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) on Monday. He has earlier served as secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment since October 2020 and was responsible for implementing the labour codes passed by the parliament in September, 2020 expeditiously. Under his guidance, rules have been framed for all four labour codes after extensive consultations with all stakeholders. The Atmanibhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana has been launched to provide employment opportunities to 78.5 lakh workers in the formal sector with a budget of Rs 23,000 crores.

Prior to this, Chandra worked as Director General (acquisition) in the Ministry of Defence from December 2017 with the mandate of strengthening the Indian Armed Forces by expediting the acquisition process. Several major contracts like S-400 missile system, multi role helicopters, assault rifles, naval ships, T-90 tanks etc. were signed during the period. He chaired the committee to draft the new defence acquisition procedure.

Between 2013-2017, Chandra was appointed as Principal Secretary (Industries) in the Government of Maharashtra and was instrumental in introducing a slew of new policies such as electronic policy, retail policy, single window policy to attract new investments. The first smart industrial township under the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) has been operationalised at Aurangabad in Maharashtra under his leadership. Furthermore, he has spent more than seven years in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in the Government of India. He has been involved in framing policies with regard to fuel supplies to industries, supply logistics, transportation, storage and distribution of fuel products, among others. He was directly associated with Natural Gas transportation infrastructure, setting up of city gas distribution companies, LNG import terminals and allocation of gas to industries. Shri Chandra has served on the Board of Directors of Maharatna PSU, GAIL (India) Ltd. and Petronet LNG Ltd.

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