The Punjab government on Wednesday transferred its information and public relations(PR) secretary Ramvir and director Akshita Gupta.
Puneet Goyal, a 2010-batch IAS officer, was appointed special secretary with the additional charge of PR director.
Ramvir, a 2009-batch officer, will now serve as secretary for water supply and sanitation, relieving Nilkanth Avhad, who is departing on central deputation. Ramvir retains his role as Jalandhar divisional commissioner.
Ghanshyam Thori, a 2010-batch IAS officer, will hold the charge of secretary, medical education and research, in addition to the health department.
Akshita Gupta, a 2021-batch IAS officer, has been transferred as the Ropar additional deputy commissioner.
While senior officials termed the transfers a routine administrative exercise, government insiders suggest the duo was removed because the PR department failed to effectively project chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s Shukrana Yatra “as a definitive narrative of the government being a protector of the Sikh faith.”
The four-day statewide yatra, which concluded at Fatehgarh Sahib on May 9 following the implementation of the Jaagat Jot Sri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar (Amendment) Act, 2026, was intended to celebrate stricter penalties for sacrilege. However, the event was eclipsed by the Enforcement Directorate’s arrest of cabinet minister Sanjeev Arora on the yatra’s final day. The arrest was in connection with a ₹100-crore money laundering and GST fraud probe, alongside simultaneous CBI raids on the state Vigilance Bureau office in Mohali.
This is the second time the PR department’s top brass has been shunted out during the Mann-led AAP government’s tenure after June 2022 when the department was blamed for the public leak of the security withdrawal list that included the name of singer Sidhu Moosewala just days before his murder.
www.hindustantimes.com
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