Hoshiarpur born Sunil Arora takes charge as CEC of India
KS Diwan/ royalpatiala.in/ Hoshiarpur
Born to Nasib Chand, an accounts officer in the Indian Railways and Pushp Lata, as academician, on the auspicious day of Baisakhi, 13th April, 1956, Sunil Arora, assumed charge as 23rd Chief Election Commissioner of India.
Sunil Arora studied at Hoshiarpur Vidya Mandir School, DAV School, DAV College and Government College. He did his graduation (BA Honours) and MA (English) from Panjab University, Chandigarh.
He cracked the civil services examination in his first attempt in 1978 and got selected for the Indian Police Services. Two years later, he made it to IAS an Rajasthan cadre and got 1980 batch. He superannuated on 30th April, 2016 as Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India. During the 36 years of his service, he held various crucial positions in the State Government of Rajasthan and in the Central Government.
Prior to assuming charge as, Arora had been serving as Election Commissioner in Election Commission of India since 1st September 2017. During this time, Election Commission has conducted elections to the states of Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland & Karnataka successfully. Similarly, elections to five poll going states, namely, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan & Telangana are in various stages of completion and the counting of the same is on 11th December, 2018. During his tenure as CEC, there will be General Election to the 17th Lok Sabha, General Elections besides the elections to State Legislative Assemblies of Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, NCT of Delhi, Bihar and Jammu & Kashmir.
He served in several key positions viz. Secretary in the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Chairman & Managing Director of the then Indian Airlines between 2002 to 2005, member of Board of Directors of Air India, Airport Authority of India Ltd. and National Skill Development Corporation. Arora also served as the Chairman of Rajasthan State Industrial Development & Investment Corporation (RIICO) in 2005-2013 and as Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Government of Rajasthan in 2013-2014 among several other important positions.
