The State Cabinet has appointed 1981 batch IAS officer Nalini Netto as the State’s news Chief Secretary.
Ms. Netto, who would takeover from incumbent S.M. Vijayanand, who would vacate office on March 31 on superannuation.
As Additional Chief Secretary, she has been holding charge of Home and Vigilance, besides functioning as Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
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Additional Chief Secretary V.S. Senthil (Planning) will take over as Secretary to the Chief Minister and Additional Chief Secretary (Public Works) Subrata Biswas will take charge of Home and Vigilance once Ms. Netto assumes office as Chief Secretary.
The Cabinet, which held its weekly meeting here on Wednesday, also decided to appoint Asha Thomas as Principal Secretary in charge of Public Works. She would also continue to hold charge as Managing Director of Kerala Roads and Bridges Corporation. Fisheries Principal Secretary James Varghese will hold additional charge of Environment and Principal Secretary (Personnel and Administrative Reforms), Satyajith Rajan would hold additional charge of General Administration, replacing Additional Chief Secretary Sheela Thomas, who also retires along with Mr. Vijayanand. The Cabinet also decided to appoint Haritha V. Kumar, secretary, Kochi Corporation, as the Director of Panchayats and appoint P. Balakiran, at present Director of Panchayats, as the new Tourism Director. The Cabinet cleared promotion of 1986 batch IAS officers P.H. Kurian (Principal Secretary, Revenue) and James Varghese (Principal Secretary, Fisheries) as Additional Chief Secretaries.
The Cabinet approved the notification reconstituting the Kerala Fish Workers’ Debt Relief Commission and extended its tenure by a year. It decided to suspend the revenue recovery measures against Rubco, which owed ₹76.76 crore to various financial institutions, and to buy 35 new cars for the Tourism Department, reportedly for use by Ministers and the Leader of the Opposition. The government would bear the expenditure for providing education to Vaishnavi, the lone survivor from the family of which four members were found dead recently at Kadangod.
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Services lauded
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has lauded outgoing Chief Secretary S.M. Vijayanand and Additional Chief Secretary Sheela Thomas as two officers who had used their official positions for the common good. Addressing a meeting at the Durbar Hall on Wednesday, attended by almost the entire State Cabinet, Mr. Vijayan said the officers had proved with their work that the civil service was not an ivory tower.