CHENNAI: One of the senior IAS officers in the State, U Sagayam (57), a bureaucrat known for his incorruptibility and straightforwardness, has sought voluntary retirement from the service. In recent times, he is the second IAS officer seeking VRS the first being Santhosh Babu. Since 2014, Sagayam has been the vice-chairman of the Science City, Chennai.
“Sagayam has applied for VRS on October 2, Gandhi Jayanthi day. Now, he has sent another letter to the government, requesting that he could be relieved by December 30 or earlier,” sources close to the IAS officer said.
Asked about the speculations that Sagayam has sought VRS since he is planning to take a plunge into politics ahead of the Assembly elections, the sources denied it and attributed some other reasons for his decision.
The sources said Sagayam has been disappointed by the way he was treated by the government by keeping him in an unimportant post for over seven years at a time when the State was in need of the best officers like him in key positions.
The sources also pointed out that Sagayam should have been promoted to a Secretary-grade officer four or five years ago. But he was not given that and as a result, he was getting a salary of 15 per cent less than that of his junior in the administration. “Salary is not an issue but how the government treated an officer is an issue here.”
Of late, he started feeling that continuing in this position would not help him in doing service to the people or guide the youth, and hence he decided to quit the government service. On personal grounds, he has sought VRS.”
“Basically, Sagayam has been wanting to engage himself in the service for the people as well as to the Tamil language. He felt very bad about the opportunities not given to him when disasters struck the State. Whenever foreign Tamil associations invite him to give talks, unnecessary questions were put to him from certain quarters to stall his participation in those events,” the sources added.
During the pandemic, he was so much depressed that he could not move with the people or serve them. He was even ready to part with one-third of his salary for the Corona relief works. But he started helping those affected by COVID-19 from his salary and contributed to the Chief Minister’s Public Relief Fund and a foundation in Mumbai and also helping the students from a poor economic background to meet their educational needs. But the government did not use him the relief works, the sources added.
Upagaram Pillai Sagayam was born on March 22, 1963, at Perunchunai village in Pudukottai district. He received his Master’s degree in social work from Loyola College and a Bachelor’s degree in law from the Chennai Law College. He reportedly faced more than 25 transfers in 30 years of service. His office door used to bear a sign reading "Lanjam Thavirththu Nenjam Nimirthu (Reject Bribe and hold your head high).
The important positions held by him include Secretary, State Election Commission, Collector of Namakkal, and Madurai districts, Legal Commissioner to probe the irregularities in granite mining in Madurai.
He cleared the Civil Service Examination of the UPSC and joined Central Secretariat Service in Delhi in 1989. Later, he cleared TamilNadu Public Service Commission and joined as a Deputy Collector in TamilNadu in1990. Sagayam was the first IAS officer in the country to declare his personal assets voluntarily in the public domain in 2009 while he was Collector of Namakkal district.
When he was DRO cum Additional District Magistrate in 1999, he sealed the production unit of Pepsi in Kancheepuram district following a lab report which confirmed that the samples were not fit for human consumption. In 2011, Election Commission posted Sagayam as Collector of Madurai district where complaints about bribing voters were high. He thwarted many attempts to bribe voters and registered cases against many key politicians.
In 2012, Sagayam's report about illegal quarrying of granite in Madurai and its surroundings shocked everyone as the estimated loss due to the irregularities stood at Rs.16,000 crore. In 2016, a large number of youth gathered under the banner Ezhuchi Thamizhagam in Madurai, appealed to him to enter politics to cleanse the system.