The 1977-batch Indian Police Service officer was till recently officiating as the Odisha top cop before he was shifted to a similar position with a different charge in the state.
The post of the Special Secretary of the internal security division has been lying vacant for the last ten months since S Jayraman retired in September last year.
Mishra will be in office till February 2016, the time when he retires.
The internal security division in Union Home Ministry deals with some of the most crucial and sensitive subjects like Left Wing Extremism, insurgency, intelligence collation and dissemination and tasking of various central security agencies and police forces.