Nitish’s Top Bureaucrat: Meet Bihar’s new chief secretary A K Sinha

Sinha: A Key Officer in Bihar's Dream Project

DURING the last few months, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has been aggressively chasing his dream of building a Dubai-like world city on the bank of the Ganges. He managed to get noted architect Hafeez Contractor to map out the plan of building high-rise apartments with water sports facilities on the river side. And now, chief minister elevated his trusted officer for the project, 1976 batch IAS Ashok Kumar Sinha, as Bihar’s next chief secretary.
Unlike most IAS officers…
who come to Delhi on a Central deputation for two innings if not three during a career of over three decades, Sinha had never ventured outside the state. But Bihar CM found him the most suitable to anchor the state’s bureaucracy. Sinha will now replace Naveen Kumar who is retiring in the end of this month. Interestingly, like Naveen Kumar who was urban development secretary at the Centre before moving to Patna as chief secretary, Sinha too has expertise on urban affairs as he is currently working as development commissioner under state urban ministry. Sinha had earlier handled industries department too. 
Sinha was the district magistrate in a number of districts in Bihar including Sitamarhi, Madhubani and Giridh. He was also the collector of Hazaribag. Sinha will retire in January, 2014 giving him one year and five months at the top office. Some of his batch-mates at the Centre include finance secretary RS Gujral, revenue secretary Sumit Bose, information and broadcasting secretary Uday K Varma and tourism secretary RH Khwaja just to name a few. 
Bihar’s principal secretary, Panchayati Raj, Phul Singh has been appointed the new development commissioner in place of Sinha.

CBI books IAS on a CWG case
Central Bureau of Investigation has booked 1987 batch Maharashtra cadre IAS officer Vijay Kumar Gautam in connection with alleged irregularities while awarding contracts to a Switzerland-based firm ahead of the Commonwealth Games held in New Delhi in October, 2010. Gautam was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Organizing Committee of the Games. He was also an observer in the Melbourne’06 and Beijing’08 Games. It’s not immediately known how come the CBI took such a long time to come to this conclusion.

Action and Appointments
a) MVS Rami Reddy, a 1988 batch UP cadre IAS, presently in the cadre, has been appointed as Deputy Director General, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) at Hyderabad in place of VS Bhaskar, a 1985 batch Assam cadre IAS. Reddy will hold the rank of a joint secretary.
b) Bijay Kumar, a 1986 batch Maharashtra cadre IAS presently working as MD of National Horticulture Board, has been appointed as Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) in Food Corporation of India (FCI), New Delhi.