By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 28 Sep: Chief Secretary Radha Raturi who was set to retire on 30 September has again been granted a further extension of 6 months, on the request of Pushkar Singh Dhami Government, by the Centre. In this regard, Union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions has granted the approval for extension of the services of Radha Raturi. There was a lot of speculation in the media whether she will be granted another extension or not or will she be replaced by Additional Chief Secretary Anand Bardhan.
The approval of the Centre has been conveyed to the state government through a letter written by Under Secretary to the Government of India (Ministry of Personnel, Grievances and Pensions), Bhupinder Pal Singh. This is the second time, that an extension has been granted to her as Chief Secretary. An IAS officer of 1988 batch, she is the first woman Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand. She had been promoted as Chief Secretary on 1 February this year and was set to retire on 31 March itself. She had succeeded high profile Chief Secretary Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu who had also received several extensions post his retirement. With just two months left for her service, it was being speculated whether at all, she will get a chance to be promoted as Chief Secretary on 1 February. But, the Chief Minister chose to give her a chance to serve as the first woman Chief Secretary and as expected, she was granted an extension of 6 months as Chief Secretary on 3 March and now was due to retire on 30 September.
There was a lot of speculation in the media in past few days, whether she will be granted extension or not. Though Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had already proposed to the Centre to consider another extension to her for 6 months through a letter dated 8 August itself, this information remained secret and consequently, the media could only speculate in this regard. Following her extension, she will continue to serve as Chief Secretary for another six months (Till 31 March, 2025) at least.
It has been a rather eventful professional life for Radha Raturi who began her career as a journalist but ended up being a top bureaucrat. Through her professional life, she has changed three cadres and has served 4 states besides having served in Maharashtra as a journalist.
It may be recalled that born as Radha Srivastava, she hails from Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh and wanted to be a journalist. Daughter of a bureaucrat (IRS officer BK Srivastava), she completed her post-graduation in Mass Communication from Mumbai (then Bombay) and later did her internship from Indian Express in Mumbai. She then joined the India Today fortnightly news magazine.
On her father’s advice to take up Civil Services, she managed to crack the Civil Service and was selected as an Indian Information Service (IIS) cadre officer during the year 1985-86 and joined service in New Delhi. However, she appeared for the UPSC examination again and managed to get the IPS Cadre this time (in 1987) in MP Cadre and joined the Police Academy in Hyderabad for training, where she met fellow IPS officer and her husband to be Anil Raturi, who was from the Uttar Pradesh cadre. On her father’s advice to try for the IAS again, she again cracked the UPSC, becoming the topper, and got the MP Cadre. After her marriage to Anil Raturi, she kept seeking a cadre change and, finally, after a year, managed to get her cadre changed to UP. For some time, Anil Raturi was posted at the Police Academy in Hyderabad and she followed him, as Joint Secretary on deputation, thus making her an officer that served in four states, namely MP, undivided UP, undivided Andhra Pradesh and, finally, Uttarakhand.
It may be recalled that Anil Raturi retired as Director General of Police of Uttarakhand in November, 2020, and thereafter also served as Commissioner at the Right to Services Commission. Radha Raturi has served as District Magistrate in Dehradun and, before that, in several districts of Uttar Pradesh, too. She has also worked as Chief Electoral Officer in Uttarakhand for a period of around 10 years.
