Rajesh Kumar Given Additional Charge as PCCA, Ministry of Education

Rajesh Kumar will now additionally hold charge as Principal Chief Controller of Accounts at the Ministry of Education. He already holds the same post at the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs in New Delhi. The Department of Expenditure confirmed the order this week.

The Principal Chief Controller of Accounts is the top accounting authority in any ministry — responsible for internal audit, payment authorisation and financial reporting across its budget. Kumar will now do this for two very different establishments at once: CBIC, where the money flow is driven by revenue collection and refunds, and the Ministry of Education, where it runs through scholarship disbursements, grants and scheme funding routed to states.

Kumar is a 1994-batch officer of the Indian Civil Accounts Service, the cadre that handles government accounting across central ministries. His substantive post puts him at the top of the accounting hierarchy for India's indirect tax administration, overseeing accounts across the department's field formations nationwide.

He keeps his existing CBIC role. The Education Ministry charge is additional, not a transfer.

Dual-charge arrangements like this are usually stop-gap measures — used when a ministry's accounting head post falls vacant and a senior ICAS officer elsewhere is asked to hold it temporarily. This has happened before at the Education Ministry's accounts wing.

Kumar will now track financial control and audit oversight across two portfolios that could not be more different in spending pattern — CBIC's tax administration and the Education Ministry's programme and scheme expenditure, together running into thousands of crores annually.

Officials said the arrangement would be reviewed once a regular appointment to the Education Ministry post is finalised.