By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 31 May: Senior IAS Officer of 1987 batch and former Chief Secretary Om Prakash today retired from the country’s most prestigious civil service. He was currently posted as Chief Revenue Commissioner of Uttarakhand. He was Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand during the Chief Ministership of Trivendra Singh Rawat and Tirath Singh Rawat but went out of favour when Dhami took over as CM and was replaced by the current Chief Secretary, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu. He had a quiet retirement today when he relinquished charge at the Revenue Commission Office on Ring Road this evening.
Though he had many detractors in the bureaucracy, itself, it remains a fact that he was a no nonsense kind of administrator. Never known to be dominating over his subordinates, he had the capability to think out of the box solutions and was a tough task master. His shortcoming was perhaps that he never lobbied for any posting of choice or favours with political masters and was a somewhat reserved person. Though, known to be close to former Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat under whom he served not only as Chief Secretary but earlier also as Principal Secretary and Additional Chief Secretary to CM, some shrewd bureaucrats had worked overtime to lobby against him even during the Trivendra Singh Rawat’s term as CM. He was perhaps one senior officer who also served as Principal Secretary to CM under Harish Rawat, too.
Om Prakash was the seniormost IAS officer of Uttarakhand in service of the state. He has held important portfolios such as Agriculture, Horticulture, Home, Health, PWD and School Education besides having been the District Magistrate of Dehradun for a brief period. He was transferred by the then CM ND Tiwari when he took on encroachers in the city.
When he was Principal Secretary, Health, he forced many powerful doctors to go to the hills on posting. It was during this charge that the hills had minimum vacancies in the hospitals and health care centres. Many of them, however, soon managed to get Dehradun postings when the charge was shifted from Om Prakash.
Today, it was also the turn of senior IPS Officer Pushpak Jyoti to retire.
