A 1973-batch IAS officer belonging to the Madhya Pradesh cadre, Satyananda Mishra, 61, has been handed charge of the office of the Chief Information Commissioner of India. He served as Establishment Officer and special secretary in the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) before being elevated as Secretary, DoPT, in January 2007. Prior to this appointment, he was the seniormost Information Commissioner.
Mishra began his career as a probationary officer in the State Bank of India before joining the IAS. He served the Madhya Pradesh government in various capacities for 10 years. He then spent seven years in the State and Central governments in the Department of Culture, holding posts such as Secretary of the Department of Culture, Madhya Pradesh, Managing Director of the Madhya Pradesh Film Development Corporation, Secretary of the Bharat Bhawan Trust, and Joint Secretary in the Department of Culture, Government of India.
He also handled responsibilities spanning the entire gamut of urban planning and provision of infrastructure as Chairman of the Special Area Development Authority, Korba (MP), Housing Commissioner, Madhya Pradesh Housing Board, Principal Secretary to the Department of Housing and Environment, Public Health Engineering and Public Works.
Belonging to Orissa, Mishra is affable and soft-spoken, and a bureaucrat with a clean record. An MA in English from Utkal University, he also has an MPhil in public administration and MSc in Policy Planning for Developing Countries from the London School of Economics.
