Additional Chief Secretary, Industry and Infrastructure development, Anup Chandra Pandey will be the next Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh. The 1984 batch officer, who will retire in August, 2019, succeeds Rajiv Kumar, who will attain superannuation on June 30. Formal orders for Pandey's appointment as Chief Secretary were issued on Wednesday and will come into effect on June 30. There were over a dozen IAS officers who were in the race for the coveted post. Sources said that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was himself keen on Pandey's appointment. Pandey has spent a long time in UP, working on various levels and has a clean image and impeccable record. He was Director of Information department during the regime of Kalyan Singh in 1999 and later served as Private Secretary to Uma Bharti, who was Union minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Pandey is credited for successful implementation of three flagship programmes of the Yogi government.
First, he was instrumental in implementation of farm loan waiver scheme as Principal Secretary, Finance. loan waiver was a major poll plank of the BJP in 2017 Assembly elections. It was an uphill task for the state government to mobilise resources for meeting additional expenditure of Rs 32,000 to finance the Bill of loan waiver. Another feather in the cap for Pandey was the successful organisation of the two-day 'UP Investors Summit’ in lucknow in February where MOUs for fresh investment worth Rs 4.28 lakh crore were signed. One district, one product (ODOP) was another flagship programme of the Yogi government which sought to promote one product in each district under MSME sector. The other IAS officers in the race for the top clot were 1984 batch officer - DS Mishra, who at present is Secretary in Union Urban Development ministry and Chairman of Board of Revenue (UP) Pravir Kumar. Two officers of 1982 batch and five of 1983 batch were also in the race but they were never counted as they all have short tenures left. Another serious contender was 1984 batch officer Sanjay Agarwal, who is an Additional Chief Secretary holding three departments - Secondary Education, Higher Education and PWD. Given his service record and proximity to the Prime Minister's Office, outgoing Chief Secretary Rajiv Kumar was likely to be picked up by the Centre for his next deployment. He is likely to be appointed either as a member of Union Public Service Commission or as Chairman of Competition Commission.