J S Deepak, who heads the prime minister’s committee on good governance, will be new telecom secretary. The IAS officer of 1982 Uttar Pradesh cadre was secretary of department of electronics and information technology, ministry of communications and Information technology. He replaces  Rakesh Garg as secretary of department of telecommunications. Garg, also from UP cadre, is new secretary of ministry of minority affairs.

Garg’s transfer comes after his statement last week that there won’t be any auction of spectrum in this financial year. Last week Garg had said "the auctions will be held sometime in June."  Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is expected to come out with recommendations on floor price for available spectrum across bands by end of January, which will then be sent to the telecom department for approval. The government has pegged revenue from communication services for the current fiscal at Rs 42,865 crore, including upfront realisation from spectrum sale and licence fee.

Aruna Sharma from Madhya Pradesh cadre of IAS will take over from Deepak as IT secretary.

Shobhana K Pattanayak from Karnataka cadre is secretary, department of agriculture, cooperation and farmers welfare in ministry of agriculture.

The ministry of food processing industries gets a new secretary, Avinash K Srivastava. He moves from special secretary’s post in ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare.

The appointments committee of the cabinet on Friday moved Krishan Kumar Jalan from the post of central provident fund commissioner. He will be now secretary of ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises.

Other transfers are: Vinod Agrawal, IAS (JH:1980), from secretary, national commission for scheduled castes as secretary, department of empowerment of persons with disabilities.

Shyam S Agarwal, IAS (RJ:1980), as secretary in ministry of tribal affairs. He was secretary of national commission for scheduled tribes

Arun Jha, IAS (BH:1981), moves from the position of tribal affairs secretary to national commission for scheduled castes.