Major bureaucratic rejig in Delhi
NEW DELHI: In a massive bureaucratic overhaul, the Ministry of Home Affairs has reshuffled 66 Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers who are part of the AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh–Goa–Mizoram–Union Territories) cadre. The reshuffle, which is regarded as one of the biggest bureaucratic overhauls in recent history, has come on the heels of the BJP coming back to power in Delhi after almost three decades.
Delhi saw the biggest shake-up, with 21 IAS and 23 IPS officers shifted out of the national Capital or recalled from other Union Territories. This is the first significant cadre reshuffle during the new BJP government, which assumed office earlier this year.
Among the significant IAS transfers is Ashish Chandra Verma, a 1994-batch officer who was Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) as well as occupying important positions in Revenue, Home, and Irrigation. Verma, who had policy differences with the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, has been shifted to Jammu and Kashmir. Throughout his tenure, he was subjected to persistent allegations by the AAP regime regarding delayed releases of funds and administrative excesses.
A number of IAS officers of senior ranks, such as Anil Kumar Singh (1995), Naveen S L (2012), Mahima Madan (2021), Ananth Dwivedi (2021), Shreya Singhal (2020), and Rishi Kumar (2021), have been shifted from Delhi to Jammu and Kashmir. Other postings are Chanchal Yadav and Sachin Shinde to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Vinod P Kavle to Mizoram, and Krishna Mohan Uppu to Puducherry.
In a reverse posting, Dilraj Kaur, who is an IAS officer of the 2000 batch and who was in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands earlier, has been posted to Delhi. She was a PWD secretary earlier and had been posted in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.
On the policing front, significant IPS transfers have also taken place. B S Jaiswal, a 2001-batch officer who held the post of Joint Commissioner of Police (Central Range) in Delhi, has been posted to Lakshadweep. Keshav Ram Chaurasia,
who led Delhi’s Economic Offences Wing, is now transferred to Goa.
A number of IPS officers who have come back to Delhi from other places include Omvir Singh Bishnoi, Raj Kumar Singh, Dheeraj Kumar, and Umesh Kumar. Others such as Pushpendra Kumar, Ashok Malik, Devesh Kumar Mahla, and Surendra Choudhary were posted out to Chandigarh, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh.
Apoorva Gupta, who was DCP (Crime), has been transferred to Andaman and Nicobar, while officials Rishi Kumar, Nithya Radhakrishnan, Anurag Dwivedi, and K M Priyanka from the recent batches have been posted to Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry, Arunachal Pradesh, and Chandigarh, respectively.
The reshuffle is viewed as an attempt to infuse new administrative vigour into Delhi’s and other UTs’ governance and to bring the bureaucracy closer to the Centre’s policy priorities. Analysts believe that the redistribution of officers—particularly those whose bureaucratic history with past administrations was known to be rocky—evinces a clear Centre intention to revisit the tone of administration in the capital and UTs.
The moves take effect immediately, and additional changes could be made in the next few months as part of ongoing administrative reorganisation.
