New Delhi, June 30 (KNN) The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MoMSME) is bidding adieu to KK Jalan, Secretary, MoMSME, on his superannuation.

In a tweet, the Ministry wrote, “Two years ago we bid farewell to our Secretary MSME .Time and tide wait for none. We shall say good bye to Shri KK Jalan today.”

Arun Kumar Panda will take charge as the Secretary in the ministry from July 1, 2017.

Panda (IAS-batch 1984) has studied in New Delhi and Los Angeles; he completed his PhD from department of Economics, university of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA in the year 2002.

He has held several senior positions in the State Government of Orissa. He is at present the Additional Secretary, Ministry of Health, government of India dealing with Drugs and food regulation in the government of India.

Jalan has served as a Secretary in the Ministry of MSME for two years. It was during his stint as the Secretary, that maximum budget allocation for the MSME ministry in 2017 union budget was increased by nearly 87 per cent over the budget allocated for the ministry in the previous year.

In the last two years, several key initiatives have been taken for the MSMEs and various schemes have been launched. Some of them are – Udyog Aadhaar, Digital MSME Scheme, SC/ ST Hub, MSME Data Bank etc. (KNN Bureau)