The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of senior bureaucrat Prashant Kumar Singh as Secretary of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST). Singh, a 1993-batch IAS officer of the Manipur cadre, is currently serving in the state cadre and has been relieved to take up the new assignment.
He replaces Puneet Kumar Goel, an IAS officer of the 1991 batch from the AGMUT cadre, in the rank and pay of Secretary to the Government of India.
Prior to this appointment, Prashant Kumar Singh was serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), an online procurement platform under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry that facilitates government purchases in a transparent and efficient manner.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, Singh holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. He also holds a gold medal in his master’s degree in Public Policy and Sustainable Development from TERI University, New Delhi.
His appointment to the NCST comes at a time when the commission continues to play a crucial role in safeguarding the constitutional rights and development interests of Scheduled Tribes across the country.
The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, a constitutional body under Article 338A, is mandated to oversee the implementation of safeguards provided to the Scheduled Tribes under the Constitution and other laws, and to advise the government on policies for their socio-economic upliftment.
