Air India CMD Pradeep Singh Kharola appointed aviation secretary

Air India chief Pradeep Singh Kharola has been appointed Civil Aviation secretary as part of a minor bureaucratic reshuffle.

Kharola, a 1985 batch IAS officer of Karnataka cadre, was in November 2017 named chairman and managing director of loss-making Air India.

Under him, the airline adopted a revival plan comprising of implementation of organisational reforms and business strategies for each of Air India's core businesses.

Introduction of red-eye flights to improve the utilisation of aircraft, migration of ticket reservation platform from Amadeus to Travelport leading to annual savings of around Rs 700 crore, were some of the initiatives taken under Kharola.

Kharola has over 32 years of experience across areas of urban governance, public transport and policy making. He is known to be the man behind the revival of Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation.

The appointment was announced by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet on Wednesday.

The vacancy had come up due to the superannuation of Rajiv Nayan Choubey on January 31. DIPP secretary Ramesh Abhishek was handling the portfolio in the interim.

In addition to Kharola’s appointment, the committee also approved three other appointments to key posts. While Rahul Prasad Bhatnagar was appointed as new secretary in the Panchayat Raj ministry, Radheshyam Julaniya was appointed as the new secretary in the Department of Sports and Sailesh was appointed as the new secretary for the ministry of minority affairs.