Shankar Aggarwal, a member of the 1980 IAS batch belonging to the Uttar Pradesh cadre, has taken over as Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development, after the retirement of former Secretary Sudhir Krishna. Aggarwal was earlier Secretary, Union Ministry of Women and Child Development. During his 35 years of service, Aggarwal has held several important positions in the governments of Uttar Pradesh and at the Centre dealing with Housing and Urban Development, Information Technology, Finance, Energy, Technical Education, Small Scale Industries, Transport and Defence.