IN YET another appointment of a successful former IAS officer being brought back to India to head a new government scheme, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) last week approved the appointment of Indu Bhushan as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ayushman Bharat National Health Protection Mission (ABNHPM). Bhushan’s appointment draws parallel to that of Parameswaran Iyer, a 1981 batch former Uttar Pradesh cadre IAS who had left a job in the World Bank to return to India and spearhead the Centre’s ambitious programme, Swachh Bharat Mission.
Here are 10 things you may like to know about the new CEO, Indu Bhushan:
1. Indu Bhushan, 57, has been the Director General, East Asia Department in Asian Development Bank, Manila.
2. As Director General, he has been leading the ADB’s engagement with China, Hong Kong, Korea etc.
3. Bhushan has been with ADB since 1997 first as a director, then deputy director general and then director general.
4. In his new role in India, as the CEO of ABNHPM, Bhushan will get a two years long fixed tenure. His appointment is on a contract basis.
5. He will be heading the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat, a mega health insurance programme that’s set to cover 10 crore families. It’s proposed that the scheme will have benefit cover of Rs 5 lakh per family per year.
6. Before getting into IAS, Bhushan did B.Tech from electrical and electronics engineering (1976-81) and a post graduate diploma in control systems and instrumentation (1981-1983) from IIT-Delhi.
7. For nine years between 1983 and 1992, he served as an Indian Administrative Service officer in Rajasthan. He is a 1983 batch IAS.
8. Later, he did a PhD in economics and also a master of health sciences from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He first joined the World Bank (1994-96) before shifting to the ADB.
9. His wife, Anjana Bhushan, also a former IAS from Rajasthan cadre, serves in the World Health Organization (WHO).
10. A movie buff, Bhushan regularly plays bridge.
Excellent appointment.
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