Career
He previously served as Secretary to Chief Minister of West Bengal from 2011 to 2015. He previously served as Joint Secretary to Government of India. He is a 1978 batch Central Secretariat Service officer
Sanyal joined the Central Secretariat Service in 1976 after qualifying through the Civil Services Examination.
He rose through ranks and was later empanelled as Joint Secretary to Government of India in Ministry of Food Processing Industries on June 2009 by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. He later served as Officer on Special Duty to Union Cabinet Minister of Railways from 2009 to 2011.
He retired in 2011. After retirement from the Central Government, he was appointed as Secretary to the Chief Minister of West Bengal.
His appointment and tenure to the post was made co-terminous with that of the Chief Minister. He is the first non Indian Administrative Service officer in West Bengal and the first retired civil servant to hold the position of Secretary in the Chief Ministers Office.
He also became the first non Institute for Advanced Study officer in history to hold the position of Principal Secretary in State governments of India. In 2011, a news blog declared him as the new poster boy of India’s civil services.
The Indian Express and The Financial Express rate him as top state bureaucrat in India in the article most powerful Indians for the year 2013.
Many media articles consider him to the most powerful civil servant in the state in India and the "most important officer" in the Government of West Bengal. In 2015, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (DOPT) of Government of India rejected petition filed by the Institute for Advanced Study association against the appointment of Gautam Sanyal as the Principal Secretary. In 2013, media articles reported that China, Burma, India Theatre of Operations director Ranjit Sinha had placed Sanyal on his hit-list.
