CHENNAI: With Chief Secretary V Irai Anbu and Director General of Police (DGP) C Sylendra Babu set to retire on June 30, all eyes are on who will replace the state’s top officials. Now, there are over 25 senior IAS officers in the rank of chief secretary in Tamil Nadu, and some of them are on deputation in Central government service.
The first 15 officials in the chief secretary rank include Hans Raj Verma, TV Somanathan, Vikram Kapur, Jitindranath Swain, Atulya Misra, S Krishnan, K Rajaraman, SK Prabhakar, Sandeep Saxena, Md. Nasimuddin, Shiv Das Meena, Anita Praveen, Vibhu Nayar, K Phanindra Reddy and M Sai Kumar. Of them, the names of Hans Raj Verma (1986 batch) and Shiv Das Meena (1989 batch) are doing the rounds for the top post.
There are speculations that Irai Anbu is likely to be offered a key position as the present government wants to utilise his experience in the administrative field for some more time. But it is yet to be confirmed. Irai Anbu was appointed as chief secretary on May 7, 2021, after the DMK government came to power in the state. Meanwhile, sources said for the DGP post, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) panel has given a list of three officers to the state government.
The selection of DGP is primarily based on seniority and the remaining service period the officers have. It is mandatory that the selected candidate must have tenure until the end of this year. The top three officers on the list are Sanjay Arora, who is serving as the Police commissioner of Delhi, B K Ravi, Director of Home Guards in the state and Shankar Jiwal, Chennai city police commissioner. The selected officer will serve two years as DGP irrespective of the date of superannuation.
Of the top three officers, Arora is a recipient of the Chief Minister’s Gallantry Medal for Bravery and Heroic Action for his role as the superintendent of police, Special Task Force that gunned down forest brigand Veerappan. He led two important Central Armed Police Forces - the Central Reserve Police Force and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. BK Ravi and Shankar Jiwal have served under deputation in central government posts.
The initial list submitted to the UPSC by the state police panel includes over 20 police officers, including A K Viswanathan, Abhash Kumar, T V Ravichandran, and Seema Agarwal among others.