Senior IAS officer Sameer Sharma is going to be the new chief secretary of Andhra Pradesh. He will be replacing Adityanath Das, who will be laying down his office on September 30.
Orders to this effect were issued by R Muthyala Raju, principal secretary (political) in the General Administration Department, on Friday.
A 1985-batch IAS officer of Andhra Pradesh had been on central deputation for a long time.
Till recently, he had been holding an all-important position of Director General of Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, before being repatriated to the parent cadre in June, on the request of Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.
It was expected that Sameer Sharma would replace Adityanath Das as the chief secretary on June 30, when the latter was to step down on attaining the age of superannuation.
In fact, Sharma is senior to Adityanath Das, who belongs to 1987 batch, as he got into the IAS two years before.
But Jagan got three months’ extension for Adityanath Das by writing a letter to the Centre and shifted Sameer Sharma to Institute of Leadership, Excellence and Governance (ILEG) of Andhra Pradesh as its member-secretary.
This led to the talk that Jagan might seek extension of Adityanath Das’ service by another three months, as he had done in the case of earlier chief secretary Neelam Sawhney.
But with the appointment of Sameer Sharma as the next chief secretary, it is now clear that Adityanath Das would not get the extension.
Interestingly, Sameer Sharma would be in the post of the chief secretary only for two months, as he would be retiring on November 30 on superannuation. He will continue for a maximum period of six months in two spells, if Jagan wants his services.
Otherwise, Jagan would have to pick another IAS officer as the chief secretary.
There are at least four senior IAS officers who are heading the list in terms of seniority – Ajay Sawhney, husband of Neelam Sawhney, presently in the central services on deputation; Reddy Subrahmanyam, Satish Chandra and Neerabh Kumar Prasad of 1987 batch.
But all the four are nearing their retirement and nobody would be able to continue for more than a year.
Sources said Jagan might prefer senior IAS officer Y Srilakshmi of 1988 batch as the next chief secretary.
She is now the special chief secretary rank officer who is looking after municipal administration and urban development.
She had been in the CBI cases related to Jagan and Gali Janardhan Reddy and had even served imprisonment. Though she was in the Telangana cadre, Jagan managed to get her transferred to Andhra cadre last year and gave her quick promotions.
“If there are no legal hurdles for her appointment, Jagan might prefer her as the next CS,” a source in the AP government said.
