Bhubaneswar: Re-employed Odia IAS officer Pramod Kumar Mishra, popularly known as PK Mishra, took charge Wednesday as Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His elevation comes after Nripendra Misra stepped down as the Principal Secretary to the PM.
PK Mishra, now 71, earlier served as the Additional Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. Recently, he was awarded a Cabinet Minister rank along with extension in his service co-terminus with the tenure of Modi.
As Additional Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister between 2014 and 2019, Pramod Kumar Mishra is credited with introducing innovative and transformative changes in human resource management, particularly appointments to senior positions, a government statement said.
Mishra has been an extremely powerful bureaucrat as his post was specially created by the PM. He is known as a bureaucrat most trusted by Modi. Earlier, he served as Principal Secretary to Modi between 2001 and 2004 during his tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat.
It was during this period that Mishra, a native of Odisha, played a pivotal role in the metamorphosis of Modi from an RSS pracharak to the Chief Minister of Gujarat. He is known for assisting the then Gujarat Chief Minister while the latter made his way into the complex world of the bureaucracy and public administration.
Mishra was later handpicked by Modi and appointed as Chairman of the Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission for a five-year term just after a day of his retirement in 2008.
In his four-decade-long career as an administrator, Mishra has held various key positions at the Centre and in the Gujarat government.
As Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture between December 1, 2006 and August 31, 2008 under Sharad Pawar, he was credited with the implementation of the National Agriculture Development Programme and the National Food Security Mission.
It was during his tenure in the Ministry of Agriculture that the production of food grains reached record levels and there was a substantial increase in the agricultural GDP. He later served as Member Secretary in the National Capital Region Planning Board and Secretary of the National Disaster Management Authority.
