Major bureaucratic reshuffle held in U’khand

By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 5 Aug: A major bureaucratic reshuffle was on the cards after senior IAS officer Om Prakash took over as Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand and, today, a total of 19 officers including 18 IAS officers were shifted.
Sources in the state administration claim that more transfers are on the cards in the coming days, albeit as adjustment to the major reshuffle that was affected today. A major reshuffle had become necessary after Om Prakash took over as Chief Secretary as he was in charge of some of very important departments.
Additional Chief Secretary Radha Raturi, who presently holds charge of ACS, Personnel, General Administration, Secretariat Administration and Commissioner Infrastructure Development was relieved of charge of some of the lightweight departments like General Administration, Secretariat Administration and Infrastructure Commissioner and was given charge of Technical Education, Chairperson of Uttarakhand Transport Corporation, which were previously held by then ACS Om Prakash.
Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) Manisha Panwar, who holds charge of Industry and Rural Development besides others was given additional responsibility as Commissioner of Agriculture Production. Principal Secretary Anand Vardhan, holding the charge of Forest & Environment, Excise, Planning and Externally Aided Projects besides others was relieved of his charge of Planning and given additional charge as Mining and Infrastructure Commissioner. Mining was earlier held by Om Prakash.
Secretary L Fanai holding the charge of Social Welfare, Minorities Welfare Departments, etc., was relieved of his charge as Commissioner, Industry, and DG, Industry. Secretary R Meenakshi Sundaram holding charge of Agriculture, Agriculture Education, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry, Dairy, School Education Departments was relieved of his charge of Agriculture & Agriculture Education and Horticulture.
Secretary Shailesh Bagoli, who enjoys the confidence of CM Trivendra Singh Rawat and held charge of Transport, Urban Development and Disaster Management was relieved of his charge of Disaster Management and given additional charge of Housing and as Chief Administrator, Uttarakhand Housing & Urban Development Authority.
Secretary level Officer D Senthil Pandian, who was in waiting, has been given charge of Ayush and Ayush Education. Pandian was expected to be given charge of some of the better departments but this did not happen during the present reshuffle. Secretary Nitesh Jha was holding charge of some heavyweight departments like Home, Housing, Irrigation and Minor Irrigation and as Chief Administrator, Uttarakhand Housing & Urban Development Authority, was relieved of charge of Housing and Chief Administrator, Uttarakhand Housing & Urban Development Authority. Radhika Jha, Secretary to the CM and of Power, Renewable Energy and Rural Engineering Services, has been relieved of her charge of Rural Engineering and continues to hold charge of other important departments.
Secretary Harbans Singh Chugh, presently holding charge of Sugar and Sugarcane Development was given additional charge of Agriculture & Agriculture Education. Secretary Dilip Jawalkar holding charge of Tourism, Religious Affairs, as CEO, Uttarakhand Tourism Council, and of Ayush & Ayush Education, was relieved of the charge of Ayush and Ayush Education.
Secretary (In charge) SA Murugesan, holding charge of Disaster Management and CEO State Disaster Mitigation Authority was given additional charge as DG/Commissioner Industry. Additional Secretary Harish Chandra Semwal, having recently been promoted as Secretary (In-charge), has been given charge of Excise and Panchayati Raj. Brijesh Kumar Sant, holding charge as Secretary (In-charge) to the Governor, and of Sports and Panchayati Raj was relieved of his charge of Panchayati Raj and given additional charge of Rural Engineering Services. Additional Secretary Chandresh Yadav, recently given a clean chit in the NH Scam and promoted to the rank of Secretary (In-charge), has been given a very lightweight department of Census besides Urban Development, and Sugarcane Development.
Another young officer considered to be close to the CM, Neeraj Khairwal was recently shifted from the post of DM, Udham Singh Nagar, and brought into the state administration as Additional Secretary to CM and was also made MD of UPCL. He was given another major responsibility as MD, PTCUL, while Vinay Shankar Pandey, who presently holds charge as Municipal Commissioner of Dehradun, was given additional charge as Additional Secretary, Urban Development. Additional Secretary, Finance, Ahmed Iqbal was given additional charge of Audit earlier held by Finance Cadre officer Amita Joshi.