Neeraj Mittal has been appointed as the secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG). He has been appointed in place of Pankaj Jain, who was earlier appointed as member secretary, Eighth Central Pay Commission.
Mittal is a 1992-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Tamil Nadu cadre. He has previously contributed to energy sector reforms as joint secretary in MoPNG. He has now moved from the Department of Telecommunications, where he was responsible for spectrum policy, service quality issues and digital infrastructure expansion. His return to the petroleum portfolio coincides with the government’s drive to bolster supply security, scale up exploration, and steer a gradual rebalancing of the energy mix.