NEW DELHI: In a late-night bureaucratic reshuffle Monday, govt appointed Deepti Gaur Mukerjee, a 1993-batch IAS from the Madhya Pradesh cadre as new higher education secretary.

This comes barely three weeks after Naresh Pal Gangwar, a Rajasthan cadre IAS officer, was named to become higher education secretary, but it was put in abeyance.His appointment had drawn public criticism on social media because his family members previously received over Rs 1 crore in govt horticulture subsidies for commercial cucumber cultivation under a National Horticulture Board scheme. The last tranche of the subsidy was released after he took charge as secretary, department of animal husbandry and dairying.

As per a personnel department order, Mukerjee will now succeed Vineet Joshi, who was last month appointed as secretary, Panchayati Raj. Mukerjee is currently serving as corporate affairs secretary. Current youth affairs secretary Pallavi Jain Govil will be the new corporate affairs secretary.Sushil Kumar Lohani, officer on special duty, Cabinet Secretariat, has been appointed as chairman, Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI). Sunil Paliwal, incumbent IWAI chairman will be new youth affairs and sports secretary.Govt also appointed Assam-Meghalaya cadre IAS, Archana Verma as the new secretary of water resources and Ganga rejuvenation department by replacing incumbent secretary V L Kantha Rao.