Amit Agrawal is new telecom secretary, Mittal moved to petroleum

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has cleared a senior-level bureaucratic reshuffle affecting multiple ministries, including the Department of Telecommunications.

As part of the changes, Neeraj Mittal, Secretary, Department of Telecommunications, has been appointed as Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Mittal, a 1992-batch IAS officer from the Tamil Nadu cadre, replaces Pankaj Jain, who moves to the Eighth Central Pay Commission as Member Secretary. Jain is scheduled to superannuate on 31 December 2025.

Amit Agrawal, currently Secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals, has been named the new Telecom Secretary. A 1993-batch IAS officer from the Chhattisgarh cadre, Agrawal took charge of the pharmaceuticals department in December 2024.

A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Agrawal has held several important positions at both the Centre and in the state administrations of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

At the Centre, he served as Chief Executive Officer of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Before joining UIDAI, he was the Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and earlier held the roles of Additional Secretary and Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Finance.

In Chhattisgarh, Agrawal served as Finance Secretary and also oversaw the Departments of Commercial Tax and Technical Education, among other portfolios.

Mittal's Tenure at the DoT

Neeraj Mittal assumed charge of the Department of Telecommunications in September 2023. As Secretary and Chairperson of the Digital Communications Commission, he steered key initiatives, such as the development of India’s indigenous telecom technology stack and the rollout of nearly 100,000 4G sites by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited.

Under his leadership, the department enabled the rapid rollout of one of the world’s largest standalone 5G networks. By creating a supportive policy framework, the telecom sector reached the milestone of 100 million 5G subscribers by December 2023. The Department credited Mittal with driving the fastest large-scale 5G deployment globally and advancing India’s position in next-generation telecom technologies.

In recognition of these contributions, he was conferred the Voice&Data Pathbreaker of the Year Award for 2022 for facilitating the infrastructure required for a nationwide 5G rollout and enabling India to emerge as a global reference point in 5G network implementation.