Lieutenant General Gurmit Singh, who retired as the deputy chief of the Indian Army, was on Thursday appointed the governor of Uttarakhand, a post that fell vacant after Baby Rani Maurya tendered her resignation.
According to a Rashtrapati Bhavan communique, President Ram Nath Kovind accepted the resignation of Maurya and appointed Singh as the governor of the state.
A highly-decorated officer, Singh superannuated from the Army in February 2016 after nearly four decades of service, during which he held prestigious appointments of deputy chief of army staff, adjutant general and corps commander of strategic XV Corps that overlooks the Line of Control in Kashmir.
He was also handling operational and military strategic issues related to China as additional director general of military operations.
During his stint in the Army, he was part of numerous expert groups, joint working groups, annual dialogues and China study group meetings for over a decade. Singh visited China seven times for important military-diplomatic and border or Line of Actual Control meetings.
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A graduate from the Defence Services Staff Course and National Defence College, Singh has done two M.Phils from Chennai and Indore universities besides being a research scholar on the India-China boundary issue in the Institute of Chinese Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, during his study leave from the Indian Army.
Besides this fresh appointment, the president also ordered shuffling of governors of some states, which includes shifting Banwarilal Purohit from Tamil Nadu to Punjab. He was earlier holding additional charge of Punjab. The Centre's interlocutor and retired IPS officer R.N. Ravi has been shifted from Nagaland to Tamil Nadu as its new governor.
Jagdish Mukhi, at present governor of Assam, has been appointed to discharge the functions of the governor of Nagaland in addition to his charge till a fresh appointment is made, the communique said.
