Row over Bengal appointment

Apr 02, 2012 |

Age Correspondent

Kolkata

The Mamata Banerjee government has broken the convention of several years. An officer of the additional chief secretary level had always been appointed as the state home secretary earlier. However, this time, the newly-appointed home secretary, Basudeb Banerjee, is an officer of the principal secretary level. Though it is not mandatory by the rule that the home secretary must be an officer of the additional chief secretary level, this appointment has created a commotion among the IAS officers as 13 officers senior to Mr Banerjee were not considered for the job.
“The post of home secretary is very important in the state administration and in the hierarchy as it is just below the chief secretary’s post. In the absence of the chief secretary, the home secretary is at the helm of affairs of the administration. By appointing Mr Banerjee, who is yet to be promoted as an additional chief secretary, as the home secretary, the government has made things complicated because presently there are 13 eligible officers senior to him in the state administration, including seven at the rank of additional chief secretaries,” said a senior IAS officer who wished not to be named. The state administration currently one chief secretary and nine additional chief secretaries. While Samar Ghosh is the incumbent chief secretary, A.K. Chanda, K.S. Rajendra Kumar, A.B. Chakraborty, G.D. Gautama, Jaya Dasgupta, Dipankar Mukherjee, N.R. Banerjee, Tuk Tuk Kumar and A.K. Agarwal are the nine additional chief secretaries. In addition, K. Sathiavasan, Subesh Kumar Das, S.K. Nurul Haque, Sanjay Mitra, Trilochan Singh and A.K. Singh are senior to Mr Banerjee who is of 1983 batch.
Among the nine additional chief secretaries, Mr Rajendra Kumar will retire on April 30.

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