Chief Secy’s wife in race for post he vacates in Sept

Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, April 21 

Though Chief Secretary Vineet Chawdhry will retire in September, the race for the next Chief Secretary has begun. 

The frontrunner for the post of Chief Secretary is Upma Chawdhry, wife of Vineet Chawdhry, who is serving as Director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy at Mussoorie. She is the seniormost in the 1983 batch. Others in her batch include Bharathi Sihaag, Asha Ram Sihag, Tarun Shridhar and Arvind Mehta, all are currently on the central deputation.  Besides the officers of the 1983 batch, some strong contenders for the post of Chief Secretary include the 1985 batch’s BK Aggarwal, Srikant Baldi and Manisha Nanda. While Aggarwal is on the central deputation, Nanda is the Principal Secretary to the CM and Baldi is Additional Chief Secretary, Finance.

Meanwhile, the Chief Secretary and his predecessor VC Pharka have applied for the two vacant posts of members in the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT).

Vineet had also applied for the post of the member of Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) last month.

A total of 11 officers have applied for the posts. The last date for applying was April 20 and the shortlisted names will be forwarded to the Selection Committee headed by Chief Justice of the High Court. The two posts have fallen vacant on the completion of the term of former Chief Secretary Harinder Hira and retired IAS Prem Kumar. 

Sources said those who had applied included Chawdhry, Pharka, PC Dhiman (all IAS officer), Shamsher Singh Negi and Sanjeeva Pandey (Indian Forest Services) and Shyama Dogra from the legal background and a retired IPS officer.  

Chawdhry, a 1982 batch IAS officer, was made the Chief Secretary, replacing VC 

Pharka after the formation of the BJP regime. Chawdhry had been superceded by Pharka for the post.  

Now it remains to be seen whether Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur will choose to abide by seniority and make Upma the next Chief Secretary, after the retirement of her husband or even before if he is selected as SAT Member. 

Pharka’s appointment as Chief Secretary in June 2016 had led to a lot of bitterness with more than half a dozen officers, including Deepak Sanan , Vineet Chawdhry, Ajay Mittal and Upma Chawdhry.

Seniormost in ’83 batch

• Upma Chawdhry, wife of Vineet Chawdhry, is serving as Director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy at Mussoorie
• She is the seniormost in the 1983 batch
• Some strong contenders for the post of Chief Secretary include BK Aggarwal, Srikant Baldi and Manisha Nanda