3 AGMUT-cadre IAS officers get Chief Secretary rank

In a significant move, three IAS officers belonging to 1984-batch of Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre have been promoted to Apex Scale (Chief Secretary rank). According to Department of Personnel and Training, three IAS officers —Ramesh Negi, Sanjay Pratap Singh, and Reena Ray — have been promoted to the Chief Secretary rank. 

Negi is presently the Chief Secretary of Arunachal Pradesh. He was the first choice of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who wanted him as his Chief Secretary after DM Spolia retired from the post in February. The Union Government had rejected the Kejriwal government’s recommendation to appoint Negi as the Chief Secretary on the ground that there were several IAS officers senior to him in the Delhi Government. When the Centre did not relent to Kejriwal’s repeated requests to appoint Negi as the CS, the AAP government then asked for then Goa Chief Secretary KK Sharma for the post. The Centre finally accepted Kejriwal’s request and appointed Sharma as the new CS of Delhi.

Sanjay Pratap Singh is the Principal Secretary of SC/ST/OBC department. Reena Ray is the Additional Secretary in the Department of School Education and literacy of Government of India. With the new promotions, all the four officials are now eligible for Chief Secretary post. Apart from the elevation of the three senior IAS officers, the Joint Cadre Authority (JCA) has also accorded high administrative grade (HAG) to seven AGMUT cadre IAS officers of 1989 and 1990-batch. The officers are: Rajendra Kumar, Praveen Kumar Gupta, Jitendra Narayan, Arun Baroka, G Narendra Kumar, Dharmendra, Bhupinder Singh Bhalla. Rajendra Kumar is currently Secretary to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Arun Baroka has already joined the Puducherry Government. 

As many as 18 AGMUT cadre IAS officers -- one 2000-batch, three 2001-batch and others of 2002-batch officers -- have been accorded Selection Grade. The officers include KK Jindal, Gamli Padu, V Shapchhunga, Sanjay Kumar Saxena, Ms Padmini Singla, Nikhil Kumar, lalhmingthanga, Jaydev Sarangi, Mohan lal, Akash Mahapatra, FO Hashmi, PR Meena, DP Dwivedi, Ashutosh Kumar, VK Jain, Manoj Kumar ZU Siddiqui and Vikas Anand.