The State government is expected to shortly find slots for two senior officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS).
R. Rajagopal, an IAS officer of the 1984 batch and now on Central deputation, is being made Secretary to Governor Banwarilal Purohit, says a top official, adding that the process of relieving him from the Centre is under way.
In the last 25 years, occupants of the post of Secretary to Governor were those who had put in 20 years and slightly more.
Perhaps, for the first time in these years, a person of the rank of Chief Secretary — Mr. Rajagopal — will be Secretary to the Governor.
Mr. Rajagopal will replace Ramesh Chand Meena of the 1991 batch, who has been part of Raj Bhavan since February 2015.
Another IAS officer who is awaiting the government’s posting is T.V. Somanathan of the 1987 batch, who has returned to Chennai after being away from the State cadre for seven years.
For the last two-and-a-half years, he was part of the Prime Minister’s Office, initially as Joint Secretary and later as Additional Secretary.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Chennai a few weeks ago, he attended the wedding of the daughter of Mr. Somanathan, who had served in the World Bank too.
He and his batchmate, Praveen Kumar, now working at the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, are the only two officers of the Tamil Nadu cadre who have been empanelled for the post of Additional Secretary in the Union government.
Post vacant
At present, the post of Planning and Development Secretary in the State government is vacant after the transfer of S. Krishnan to Housing and Urban Development in late October.
The Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) K. Shanmugam, who had a fall early this month, has been on medical leave and the ACS (Highways), Rajeev Ranjan, is looking after the subject of Finance for the time being.
