Hyderabad: The Centre has turned down the request of the Telangana state government to extend the tenure of chief secretary K. Pradeep Chandra by three months, forcing Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to appoint S.P. Singh as the new chief secretary.
Members of Parliament of the ruling TRS had also submitted the Chief Minister’s letter in this regard to the Prime Minister in New Delhi during the recent Parliament session.
The state government waited till midnight of December 31, 2016, for a favourable response from the Centre. But with the Centre not responding, the Chief Minister appointed Mr Singh as the new chief secretary.
Senior IAS officers M.G. Gopal, V.K. Agarwal and Ranjeev R. Acharya all have special chief secretary status, and were in the running for the chief secretary’s post, but Mr Singh is the senior-most.
Mr Gopal retires in February 2018, and Mr Agarwal and Ms Acharya in October 2018.
