Former Finance Secretary Ajay Seth appointed as new Irdai chairman

Business Standard

6 days ago

The Union government on Thursday appointed former finance secretary Ajay Seth as the new chairman of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai), nearly four months after the post fell vacant. Seth, who retired from the finance ministry in June, joins the list of former North Block mandarins now at the helm of regulatory bodies.
Former revenue secretary Sanjay Malhotra was appointed as the Reserve Bank of India governor in December last year. Former finance, revenue, and Department of Investment & Public Asset Management (Dipam) secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey was made the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in March this year. Last week, the government appointed former Central Board of Direct Taxes chairman Nitin Gupta as the chief of the National Financial Reporting Authority. An Indian Revenue Service officer, Nitin Gupta served as CBDT chief between June 27, 2022, and June 30, 2024.
Seth, who also held the position of economic affairs secretary since April 2021, had been part of the Finance Minister's A-team for budget-making for four years. Pandey is credited with presenting five budgets since his stint as Dipam secretary, starting in October 2019, and Malhotra, former financial services and revenue secretary, presented three budgets.
The IRDAI chairman post had fallen vacant after Debasish Panda completed his term in March 2025.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved Seth's appointment for a period of three years or until he attains 65 years of age or until further orders, whichever is the earliest.
A 1987-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from the Karnataka cadre, Seth was the officer-in-charge of the finance track of the Group of 20 (G20) under India's presidency. He is credited with heading initiatives such as India's first sovereign green bond issuance and the creation of the infrastructure finance secretariat.
Seth holds a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, and a Master of Business Administration degree from Ateneo de Manila University. His career spans over three decades, and he has significant expertise in public finance, taxation, and social sector administration.
The bureaucrat gained recognition for his work in transforming Karnataka's commercial tax administration, for which he received the Prime Minister's Award for Excellence in Public Administration in 2013.