Senior IAS officer Santosh Kumar Sarangi has officially taken charge as the Secretary of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, or MNRE.
A 1994-batch officer of the Odisha cadre, he succeeds Nidhi Khare, a 1992-batch IAS officer who held the additional charge of the post since January 2025, alongside her responsibilities as Secretary of the Department of Consumer Affairs.
Before assuming this new role, he served as Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. He also served as the district magistrate in Odisha’s three districts and held leadership positions in education, tourism, mining, tribal affairs, and science and technology departments.
At the central level, Mr. Sarangi held the post of Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry from 2013 to 2019, also serving as Chairman of APEDA and the Tea Board of India. More recently, he served as additional secretary in the Department of School Education and Literacy and concurrently chaired the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).
An alumnus of the University of Delhi, he holds a master’s degree in political science and a master’s in public policy from Duke University, USA.
