IAS officer Mandeep Bhandari appointed chairman of CBSE

Senior IAS officer Mandeep Bhandari has been appointed chairman of the Central Board of Secondary Education, taking on one of the most prominent roles in Indian school education. His appointment follows a period of leadership changes at the board.

Bhandari, a 2001-batch officer of the AGMUT cadre, brings more than two decades of administrative experience to the position. He had been serving as Principal Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu & Kashmir prior to his new posting, and has held senior roles across Jammu & Kashmir as well as central government departments.

Unusually for a senior bureaucrat, Bhandari holds a medical qualification — he is a gold medallist MBBS graduate from Dayanand Medical College, Ludhiana. His combination of a scientific academic background and extensive administrative experience is expected to inform his leadership of the board, which oversees school education for millions of students across the country.