SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 20 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 1 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Who was appointed as the Secretary of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in April 2025?

(a)KK Pathak
(b)Santosh Kumar Sarangi
(c)Rajesh Kumar Sinha
(d)Abhishek Singh

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet named Santosh Kumar Sarangi Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, in its April 2025 reshuffle.

Sarangi is a 1994-batch IAS officer of the Odisha cadre. He came to MNRE from the post of Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
KK Pathak — K.K. Pathak is a Bihar-cadre IAS officer, but the April 2025 order for MNRE did not name him. It named Santosh Kumar Sarangi, then Director General of Foreign Trade.
(c)
Rajesh Kumar Sinha — Rajesh Kumar Sinha is not the officer the April 2025 order named for MNRE. That order named Santosh Kumar Sarangi, who came from the DGFT post.
(d)
Abhishek Singh — Abhishek Singh was heading the National Informatics Centre (NIC) as its Director General by mid-2025, a post under the IT ministry, not Secretary, MNRE.

Concept

A Secretary is the administrative head of a Union ministry, working under its minister. Secretary-level postings are approved by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), headed by the Prime Minister.

MNRE is the nodal ministry for renewable energy such as solar and wind power.

Before Sarangi took over, Nidhi Khare, Secretary of Consumer Affairs, had been holding additional charge of MNRE.

Key facts

Santosh Kumar Sarangi, a 1994-batch IAS officer of the Odisha cadre, became Secretary, MNRE in April 2025.
Before MNRE, Sarangi was Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Secretary-level postings in the Union government are approved by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, headed by the Prime Minister.

Study next

Appointments Committee of the Cabinet: members and roleDirectorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and India's Foreign Trade PolicyHeads of India's science and energy departments appointed in 2025

Common traps

Picking a senior officer's name you recognise without matching it to the post. The MNRE order named Sarangi, who came from DGFT.
Confusing the ministry's Secretary, a civil servant, with its Minister.

This is a name-to-post item on a 2025 appointment. Senior appointments also appear at 14 Sep 2025, 12:30, GA Q.10 (the ISRO Chairman appointed in January 2025) and 25 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.8 (Vinay Mohan Kwatra's post before he became Foreign Secretary).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Current events — all 232 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.