Who is Shakuntala Gamlin?

Shakuntala Gamlin is an IAS Officer of 1984 batch of AGMUT Cadre serving with Government of Delhi. She was recently appointed as the Chief Secretary, something which triggered controversy.

Shakuntala Gamlin was born on 23 March 1961. She hails from Assam. She graduated in History and did her Post graduation in Sociology. She was selected for Indian Administrative Service by UPSC in 1984 and assigned AGMUT(Assam, Goa, Manipur, Union Territories and Tripura) Cadre.

Shakuntala Gamlin is an IAS Officer serving Government of Delhi

Shakuntala Gamlin is an IAS Officer serving Government of Delhi


Initially, she was appointed as Director of Tourism at Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Later she served various positions in the states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

In 1996 she was appointed as Deputy Commissioned in Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). Since then she has been serving various Union and State Level positions in Delhi.

Last year she was appointed as Addl Secretary in Finance Deptt of Government of Delhi.

In January this year, she was appointed as Chairperson of Delhi Transco Limited. She has also been assigned the responsibilities of Principal Secretary (Power) and Principal Secretary (Industries), Government of NCT of Delhi, Chairperson of Indraprastha Power Generation Company Limited & Pragati Power Corporation Limited and CMD of Delhi Power Company Limited.

On May 15, 2015 she was appointed as the Chief Secretary by Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, which led to confrontation with Aam Aadmi Party led State Government.

Also Read: The Complete Story of War over Shakuntala Gamlin’s appointment as Delhi Chief Secretary

She was a member of Indian delegation for the Eighth Session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in the year 2002.

She had attended the World Bank training on ‘carbon credit calculations’ in clean energy projects, in USA, under the aegis of UNDP, besides, being trained in Trade Policy and Negotiations in Harvard University. She has headed the National Tobacco Control Programme and the Non-communicable Disease Programme, viz. cardiovascular, cancer, stroke, diabetics etc., particularly life style diseases.