Malay De appointed new state Chief Secy

Malay Kumar De has become the state's new Chief Secretary.

The 1985 batch IAS officer will be taking over charge as the state's top bureaucrat on June 30 replacing 1983 batch IAS officer Basudeb Banerjee, who is retiring on the same day.

Banerjee, who had been serving as the Chief Secretary since December 30 in 2015, has been appointed the state Chief Information Commissioner. On the same day, De had taken over the charge of Additional Chief Secretary of Home and Hill Affairs Department and Parliamentary Affairs Department.

He was Principal Secretary of the Health and Family Welfare Department before becoming the state's Home Secretary in December 2015. During his tenure as the Health Secretary, the state had witnessed implementation of several projects to improve the condition of health services in the state by implementing the projects taken up by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also the Health minister. R S Shukla had taken over the charge of the new Health Secretary after De.

The latter has also left a mark as Principal Secretary of the department of Power and Non-conventional energy.

De's first posting was as Sub-Divisional Office at Tamluk in East Midnapore and his first posting as District Magistrate was in Purulia. Later, he also became the District Magistrate of North 24 Parganas. De will be retiring in September 2019.

Meanwhile, the state government on Tuesday appointed Humayun Kabir as the new DIG of Darjeeling Range to look after both Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts where the GJM is spearheading an agitation for a separate state of Gorkhaland.

As per a government notification, Kabir, who was the Kolkata Police Joint CP (Administration) will take over as the DIG Darjeeling Range, a post which was lying vacant for quite sometime.

Niraj Kumar Singh, the IG, IB (Border), was made the Commissioner of Siliguri Police Commissionerate replacing Chelling Simick Lepcha, the notification said.

Lepcha was made the IGP, Armed Police, Kolkata in place of Tripurari Atharv who will be the new IGP, IB (Border), the notification added.