NEW DELHI: IAS officer Ashwani Kumar who was appointed the special officer of the unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi on Friday and the AAP dispensation had been at loggerheads over a range of issues, including desilting of drains, during his earlier tenure in the Delhi government.
Kumar, a 1992-batch IAS officer of the AGMUT cadre, was the chief secretary of Puducherry.
He had recently been transferred to Delhi by the central government and was awaiting positing.
His new appointment will come into effect from May 22, the day the three civic bodies in Delhi get unified.
Kumar had served as the principal secretary of the Public Works Department and the director of vigilance in the Arvind Kejriwal government in 2017 before being transferred to Puducherry.
He had also served as the secretary (revenue) in the Delhi government.
Kumar and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government had been at loggerheads on a number of issues, including de-silting of drains and PWD proposals such as the construction of Barapullah Phase-3 elevated corridor.
In October 2017, the erstwhile Delhi Dialogue Commission, in its report, had blamed then PWD principal secretary Kumar for causing "inordinate delay" in the construction of Barapullah Phase-3 elevated corridor, which aims to connect Mayur Vihar in east Delhi to Sarae Kale Khan in south.
This project was to be completed in October 2017 but it could not be due to hardships in acquisition of two patches of land falling in the course of the corridor.
In June 2017, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had asked then Chief Secretary M M Kutty to take action against Kumar for "dereliction of duty" over desilting of drains.
Kumar too had reacted on this development and said that "squabbling attitude" did not work in such tasks.
The Delhi Assembly Privilege Committee had also initiated proceedings against him but Kumar had managed to get a stay from the high court on this.
Now as the special officer, Kumar will have the task of successfully running the unified MCD and make it financially stable.