Santosh Kumar Sarangi, a 1994-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from the Odisha cadre, has taken over as the new Secretary in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).

He succeeds Nidhi Khare, a 1992-batch IAS officer who had been holding the additional charge of the post since January 2025. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved Sarangi’s appointment.

Before this role, Sarangi served as the Director General in the Directorate General of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. His administrative experience includes positions such as district magistrate in three districts of Odisha and leadership roles in departments related to education, tourism, mining, tribal affairs, and science and technology.

At the central level, he was a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry from 2013 to 2019. He also served as Chairman of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority and the Tea Board of India.

More recently, he was the Additional Secretary in the Department of School Education and Literacy and concurrently chaired the National Council for Teacher Education.​

Sarangi holds a Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Delhi and a Master’s in Public Policy from Duke University in North Carolina, USA.

Sarangi took over as MNRE Secretary when the Indian government set an agenda to install 500 GW of non-fossil fuel-based energy capacity by 2030. India added 25.2 GW of solar capacity in the calendar year 2024, a 204% increase compared to the 8.3 GW added in 2023. According to Mercom India’s latest Q4 and Annual 2024 India Solar Market Update Report, this marks the highest annual capacity addition in the country’s history.

By the end of 2024, India’s total installed solar capacity stood at 98.7 GW, with large-scale solar projects making up 86% and rooftop solar installations contributing 14%. Solar energy represented over 21% of India’s total installed power capacity and nearly 47% of the country’s total renewable capacity.