Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India The Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India (PS to the PM; IAST: ) is the senior-most bureaucrat in, and the administrative head of, the Prime Minister's Office. The officeholder is generally a civil servant, commonly from the Indian Administrative Service and occasionally from the Indian Foreign Service. The post is considered one of the most influential in the Indian civil services, and some principal secretaries are considered more powerful and influential than senior government ministers. The Prime Minister's Secretariat (PMS)—headed by an officer of the rank of joint secretary to
Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland of State", of which there are fifteen; one for each Minister of the Government. The permanent head of a department is known as the Secretary General (equivalent to a Permanent Secretary in the British Civil Service). The head of the civil service is the Secretary General to the Government, who is also Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach. The largest reform of the civil service occurred in 1984 when the abolition of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs led to the halving of civil service numbers. The affected personnel, mainly postal and telecommunications workers, were transferred to An