Bureaucratic reshuffle: Mamata rings in changes
Kolkata: Alapan Bandyopadhyay has been appointed as the new Home Secretary replacing Atri Bhattacharya who was transferred by the Election Commission of India (ECI) and Chief Secretary Malay De was looking after the Home department.
Bandyopadhyay, who was in charge of the MSME & Textiles department with the additional charge of Industry, Commerce and Enterprises will also look after these departments, a notification issued by the state government said.
According to the order published on Monday, Atri Bhattacharya has been made the Principal Secretary of the state Tourism department. Apart from Bandyopadhyay, former Additional Chief Secretary of state Panchayats and Rural Development department Sourav Das has been made the state Election Commissioner, replacing Amarendra Nath Singh who had been appointed in 2015. As per the regulations, a person can hold the post of Election Commissioner for up to six years from the date of appointment or till 65 years of age. This month, Singh will be completing 65 years and hence, he has been replaced.
Several other IAS officers' postings have also been reshuffled on Monday. Principal Secretary of Youth Services and Sports Ajit Ranjan Bardhan has been posted as the Principal Secretary of North Bengal Development Department (NBDD) along with the additional charge of Commissioner of Jalpaiguri which was already there. He has been replaced with P B Salim who was holding the charge of Secretary in Minority Affairs. Barun Kumar Ray who was posted as Principal Secretary of NBDD has been made the Commissioner of Malda. Choten D Lama who was holding the post of Secretary in the Panchayats and Rural Development Department with additional charge of Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of West Bengal State Rural Livelihoods Mission (WBSRLM) has been posted as the Secretary of Backward Classes Welfare with additional charge of Secretary, Tribal Development.
P Ulganathan has been made the District Magistrate of South 24-Parganas who was earlier DM Murshidabad. J P Meena, who was holding the post of DM Hooghly, replaced Ulganathan and has been made DM Murshidabad. DM South 24-Parganas Y Ratnakara Rao has been posted as DM Hooghly. Chaitali Chakraborty who was posted as DM Howrah has now been made DM North 24-Parganas. She will be replaced by Mukta Arya who was posted as DM, Bankura under the order of the Election Commission.
DM North 24-Parganas Antara Acharya has been posted as Additional Secretary in the state Finance department. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stated that Acharya did not want to continue as DM for personal reasons. Another IAS officer, Vijay Bharti, who was holding the post of Director in MSME & Textiles has been made the DM of East Burdwan. Anurag Srivastava who was holding the charge of DM East Burdwan has now been made the Director of MSME & Textiles. Vishwanath who was posted as DM Kalimpong has been appointed as the Director of Census Operations. Lalita Lakshmi will be joining as DM Kalimpong. Umashankar S who was removed by the EC has been reinstated as DM Bankura.
