Sunil Barthwal takes charge as commerce secretary

Sunil Barthwal, a 1989-batch officer of the Bihar cadre, assumed charge as commerce secretary on Friday.

Senior IAS officer Sunil Barthwal assumed charge as the commerce secretary on Friday. Barthwal, a 1989-batch officer of the Bihar cadre, previously served as the labour and employment secretary.

Sunil Barthwal replaced Subrahmanyam, a 1987-batch IAS officer of the Chhattisgarh cadre, who was appointed as chairman and managing director, India Trade Promotion Organisation on a contract basis for a period of two years following his superannuation.

Barthwal has held various administrative positions in areas of finance, social security, infrastructure, mines, steel, energy and transport at both Centre and state level.

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The IAS officer is credited with many reforms in the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation, the largest social security organisation in the country, during his tenure as the CEO.

"Sunil Barthwal has been instruments in many reforms in EPFO resulting in making it a more efficient, transparent and delivery oriented organisation," the commerce ministry said in a statement.

Barthwal did his Economics honours from St Stephen's college, Delhi and has a post-graduate economics degree from JNU. He has published articles in journals and other publications and has represented India in many international forums.