The Hindu : New Delhi News : Regunathan likely to be Chief Secretary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 23, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Regunathan likely to be Chief Secretary

By Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI, JUNE 22. A major bureaucratic reshuffle in the Delhi Administration is on the cards before the budget session of the Delhi Assembly. In all likelihood, S. Regunathan, Secretary (Animal Husbandry) in the Union Government, will become the next Chief Secretary of Delhi after the retirement of the present incumbent, Shailja Chandra, on June 30.

According to sources in the Delhi Government, Ms. Dikshit had already discussed the matter with the Union Home Minister, Shivraj Patil, and conveyed her choice of Mr. Regunathan, a 1968 batch IAS officer, as the next Chief Secretary of Delhi. Mr. Regunathan had worked as Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister for almost five years and had only recently gone on Central deputation. In fact, Ms. Dikshit is of the view that induction of Mr. Regunathan would mean continuity in the working of the Delhi Government as he was well acquainted with the functioning of the Government and its policies, priorities and programmes. There were other aspirants for the post of the Chief Secretary, but Ms. Dikshit is understood to be clearly backing Mr. Regunathan.

The comeback of Mr. Regunathan is also likely to prompt a bureaucratic reshuffle in terms of the return of some new officers and the need to reallocate departments to the present ones. A number of senior officers have also retired from service leading to several vacancies.

It is learnt that the Secretary (Water Resources), V.K. Duggal, had also been lobbying for the post of the Chief Secretary. He had reportedly met the Chief Minister in this regard but his case could not take off, as Ms. Dikshit is understood to have reservations about his working and style of functioning. Similarly, another aspirant, S.P. Aggarwal, presently posted as Principal Secretary (Health) is also out of favour for his "not so impressive past record". His rivals put forward his removal from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi as a case in point. Mr. Aggarwal has also not performed up to the mark in his present assignment as majority of the hospital projects are behind schedule and situation in the Government hospitals has gone from bad to worse.

Meanwhile, a number of officers back from their routine postings outside the State are all set to return to the cadre. Among the officers likely to join the Delhi Government in the next few days are K.S. Mehra from Lakshdweep, Pradeep Singh from Andaman, R.K. Srivastava from Daman and Arvind Ray from Goa.

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