CHANDIGARH: The post of the Principal Secretary to Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini has been vacant since September 30, when IAS officer Arun Kumar Gupta retired. In another two months, Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi will also demit office on December 31 after two extensions, leaving this post vacant as well.
Amid a shortage of officers in the state, the Haryana Government has written to the Central Government seeking the repatriation of four IAS officers.
Sources said that the four officers whom the Haryana government wants back are V. Umashankar (1993 batch), Rakesh Gupta (1997 batch), Nitin Kumar Yadav (2000 batch), and Vikas Gupta (2001 batch). The Centre is yet to respond to the state’s request.
Presently serving as Secretary in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways since November 1, 2024, Umashankar is being seen in bureaucratic circles as the next Chief Secretary.
Due to retire on June 30, 2028, he will have one and a half years of service left if the government decides to name him as Rastogi’s successor. He served as Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister under both Manohar Lal Khattar and Nayab Singh Saini from 2020 to 2024 and is considered close to the BJP government.
He was also Additional Principal Secretary from October 2018 to October 2020. His wife and batchmate, Deepti Umashankar, is Secretary to the President of India.
Meanwhile, Rakesh Gupta has been serving as Additional Secretary in the President’s Secretariat since November 2022 and served as Additional Principal Secretary to the chief minister from October 2014 to October 2018 during CM Khattar’s tenure.
He handled the Women and Child Development, Skill Development and Industrial Training, and Education Departments, and oversaw flagship programmes of the BJP government, including Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and the Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associates Programme.
Nitin Kumar Yadav has been posted as Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce since June 2024. In Haryana, he has been Secretary (Home) and has also held positions in the Power and Education Departments, as well as earlier serving as Home Secretary in the Chandigarh Administration.
Vikas Gupta has been serving as Commissioner of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan under the Centre since December 2025. In Haryana, he handled the Urban Local Bodies and Civil Aviation Departments, as well as the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC).
He also served as CEO of the Haryana Parivar Pehchan Authority, a flagship programme of the BJP government, from 2021 to 2024.
Haryana has 179 IAS officers against a sanctioned strength of 226, a shortfall of 47. Among the top 20 officers on the state’s gradation list, ten are on central deputation.
Further compounding the shortfall, five serving officers—Pankaj Agarwal, Ram Kumar Singh, Vineet Garg, Mohd Shayin, and Saket Kumar—have been named in the CBI chargesheet in the ₹657-crore IDFC First Bank-AU Small Finance Bank scam.
They are unlikely to be given prominent postings. While Pankaj Agarwal is in jail, Vineet is posted as Additional Chief Secretary (Printing and Stationery).
Retirements in the coming three months will worsen the situation and further compound the problem of vacant posts. At the end of this month, Sanjay Joon, Commissioner of the Faridabad Division, will retire.
Sudhir Rajpal, who is Additional Chief Secretary (Home, Environment, Forest and Wildlife, and Finance Departments), and Geeta Bharti, Commissioner of the Hisar Division, are due to retire on November 30. Two months later, Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi is due to retire on December 31, 2026. He was granted a second extension on the recommendation of the state government.
IAS officers Anita Yadav and Arun Kumar Gupta (who was also the Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister) already retired on September 30. The Saini government is yet to name Gupta’s replacement. Before them, D. Suresh retired on August 31, while Raja Sekar Vundru retired on July 31.
