New Delhi, Dec 26 (IANS): Arunish Chawla, an IAS officer of the 1992 batch has been appointed the new Revenue Secretary in a reshuffle of top bureaucrats announced by the Centre on Wednesday.

Chawla, who is from the Bihar cadre, is currently the pharmaceuticals secretary. He has been appointed secretary, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, according to a circular issued by the Ministry of Personnel.

The post of Revenue Secretary had fallen vacant, earlier this month, after Sanjay Malhotra was appointed the RBI Governor to replace Shaktikanta Das whose extended tenure came to an end.

Chawla will also continue to hold the additional charge of Secretary, Ministry of Culture till the appointment of a regular incumbent, the order stated.

Amit Agrawal, chief executive officer of Unique Identification Authority of India, will take over as the new pharmaceuticals secretary, replacing Chawla.

As part of the reshuffle, Vineet Joshi, who is also a 1992 batch IAS officer, has been appointed as the Secretary of Higher Education. He was serving as Chief Secretary of Manipur since May last year. Prior to this he was the additional secretary of the Department of Higher Education and is well versed with the working of the Education Ministry.

The change also includes the posting of Rachna Shah as Secretary of the Department of Personnel. She was until now the Secretary of the Textiles Ministry.

Neelam Shammi Rao, who was until now the Secretary of the Minorities Commission, has been appointed as the Textiles Secretary in place of Shah. Sanjay Sethi, an IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre will take over as the new Secretary of the Minorities Commission.

The order also states that Neerja Sekhar, currently the special secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, will be the director general of the National Productivity Council under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.