As expected, senior IAS officer and special chief secretary looking after irrigation department Adityanath Das has been chosen as the new chief secretary of Andhra Pradesh.
Adityanath Das will be replacing Neelam Sawhney, who will be retiring on December 31 on completion of her two-term extension which she got after her superannuation in June this year. Orders to this effect were issued on Tuesday evening.
In fact, another special chief secretary K S Jawahar Reddy was tipped to be the next chief secretary on retirement of Neelam Sawhney, but it was learnt he declined to accept the post.
Reddy wanted to retire in the service of Lord Venkateshwara of Tirumala. Accordingly, he was made executive officer of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams a couple of months ago.
Adityanath Das has been a loyalist of chief minster Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy right from the beginning and played instrumental role in replacing Navayuga Engineering with Megha Engineering in Polavaram project.
He also played a big role in designing the Rayalaseema lift scheme on Krishna river.
Adityanath Das will be replaced by J Shyamala Rao, a 1997-batch IAS officer in the irrigation department. Rao has been looking after municipal administration and urban development all these days.
