Harvard alumnus Shailesh Kumar Singh joins MSME Ministry as new Development Commissioner

Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Shailesh Kumar Singh, the Additional Chief Secretary cum Principal Secretary to Jharkhand Governor has been appointed as the new Additional Secretary and Development Commissioner at the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. The appointment was approved by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions on Tuesday.

The 1991 batch IAS completed his BTech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1988 and Masters in Public Administration in International Development from Harvard University in 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile. Singh was Joint Secretary in Coal Ministry between 2012 and 2015 and Chief Vigilance Officer at Steel Authority of India till April 2017. 

Singh replaced Devendra Kumar Singh who was the Additional Secretary and Development Commissioner at MSME Ministry from May 18, 2020, till September 23, 2021, according to the DC MSME portal. Shailesh Kumar Singh is the 31^st Development Commissioner since 1954, as per the government records. 

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Singh was among the 13 new appointments across various ministries and departments approved on Tuesday. This comes over four months after MSME Ministry had appointed Central Secretariat Service (CSS) officer Mercy Epao as the new Joint Secretary (JS) – SME Division. Epao was elevated to the JS rank from her earlier position as the Director – SME Division at the MSME Ministry where she was managing the International Cooperation section, Coordination section, EDI section, and Media cell. Previously, Epao was the Director at the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region. 

Currently, there are two Additional Development Commissioners in the MSME Ministry – Ishita Ganguly Tripathy who looks after MSME policy & its governance including Public Procurement Policy and National MSME Board and Sonia Pant who is incharge of Autonomous Bodies (HR & Establishment) and (TC & Tool Rooms), Technology Centre System Programme (TCSP), Common Infrastructure (Cluster Development Programme), etc. Deepak Rao is the Joint Development Commissioner looking after the budget, schemes such as Credit Linked Capital Subsidy Scheme, Interest Subvention Scheme, Credit Guarantee Scheme, and Credit Monitoring Cell apart from National Awards and more.