By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 1 Jan: Consequent upon the recent time scale promotion of 7 IAS officers of Uttarakhand cadre as Secretaries, the state government, to begin with, has assigned Secretarial level responsibilities to four of them. With the four IAS officers having been posted as Secretaries to the state government, responsibilities of 6 IAS officers have been affected.
It may be recalled that just before the new year, 14 IAS officers in Uttarakhand had been granted promotions, with seven being elevated to the rank of Secretary. The government has now issued an order outlining the new responsibilities for 4 of these officers.
Four IAS officers from the 2009 batch have been given roles at the secretary level. IAS C Ravishankar has been posted as Secretary, Skills Development and Employment, Jugal Kishore Pant has been posted as Secretary, Religious Affairs and Culture, Ranveer Singh Chauhan has been posted as Secretary, Sugarcane and Sugar Department, while Dhiraj Singh Garbyal has been posted as Secretary, Minority Welfare Department.
As a result of these postings, Principal Secretary L Fanai has been relieved of the charge of Minority Welfare but will continue to hold other existing responsibilities. Similarly, Hari Chandra Semwal has been relieved of his charge as Secretary, Religious Affairs, Culture, and as Director General, Culture, with no new assignments given at present.
Three other IAS officers, also promoted as Secretaries to the Government, namely Savin Bansal, who is presently District Magistrate, Dehradun, Dr Raghav Langar and Jyoti Yadav might have to wait longer to be posted as Secretaries. Dr Raghav Langar is at present on Central deputation in the Ministry of Water Resources. Savin Bansal was only recently posted as District Magistrate in Dehradun and has carved out a special reputation with his proactive administration of the district. Besides, he is also the District Election Officer and with the municipal elections having been declared already, is not expected to be moved. IAS officer Jyoti Yadav is also presently on central deputation with Ministry of Commerce and her deputation period was extended just a few months ago.
