Neeraj Rohmetra
JAMMU, June 20: The Government today appointed BB Vyas, Chief Secretary of the State and Vijay Kumar, a retired IPS officer as Advisors to Governor NN Vohra while BVR Subrahmanyam, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) in Chhattisgarh, was posted as new Chief Secretary of the State replacing Vyas.
An official order issued this evening by the General Administration Department (GAD) said BB Vyas, Chief Secretary and Vijay Kumar, IPS (Retired DG CRPF), presently serving as Senior Security Advisor, Union Ministry of Home Affairs, have been appointed as Advisors to the Government.
The terms and conditions of their appointment will be notified separately, the order said.
Another order issued by the GAD said BVR Subrahmanyam, an IAS officer of 1987 batch of Chhattisgarh cadre, whose services were kept at the disposal of the State Government late last night by the Appointment Committee of Cabinet (ACC), has been appointed as new Chief Secretary of the State with immediate effect.
He will replace Vyas, who had only last month been granted one year extension in the services as the Chief Secretary.
Last night, the Central Government had placed the services of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trusted officer BVR Subrahmanyam, an expert in tackling Naxalism in Chhattisgarh at the disposal of Jammu and Kashmir Government for posting as the Chief Secretary.
Authoritative sources told the Excelsior that 53 year old Subrahmanyam comes with rich experience in dealing with Naxalism in BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh, where he was presently posted as Additional Chief Secretary (Home).
Subrahmanyam had worked in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for quite some time, first with Dr Manmohan Singh during UPA Government and then with Narendra Modi before proceedings to Chhattisgarh as Additional Chief Secretary Home. Subrahmanyam hails from Andhra Pradesh.
Vyas, a 1986 batch IAS officer of J&K cadre has the distinction of having served as Principal Secretary to last three Chief Ministers in J&K including Mehbooba Mufti, late Mufti Sayeed and Omar Abdullah. He has held various prestigious assignments in the State before taking over as the Chief Secretary in April 2017. On his scheduled retirement on November 30, 2017, he was granted extension of three months twice till May 31. In May, the Centre had given him one year extension.
Vijay Kumar had served from 1985 to 1990 in the Elite Special Protection Group (SPG) with former Prime Minister Late Rajiv Gandhi. In 1991, he along with Sanjay Arora went on to form the Special Security Group (SSG) to provide security to former Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa. He served from 1998 to 2000 as the Inspector General, Border Security Force (BSF) Srinagar during the peak of militancy. He also served as IG (Operations), BSF before being recalled to the state to head the operations to hunt the forest brigand Veerapan.
He served as the Director-General of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) from 2010 to 2012. In December 2012, the Union Government appointed him as Senior Security Adviser, Ministry of Home Affairs in Government of India.
Sources said the Centre wanted to utilize experience of Subrahmanyam in internal security matters for dealing with militancy in Jammu and Kashmir and it was in this context that he was posted as new Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir.
Sources said the posting of Subrahmanyam as new Chief Secretary and two new Advisors including Vijay Kumar, who was presently posted as Senior Security Advisor in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, were ordered as the Central Government wanted to post some of its “trusted bureaucrats” in Jammu and Kashmir with a view to tighten grip over the administration and set the things right including tackling militancy and violence, improving governance, ensuring equal development with no discrimination with any part of the State including Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh etc.
“The Centre was in search of some bureaucrats, who could handle the situation well in Jammu and Kashmir and provide good assistance to the Governor in running the Government,” sources said, adding that the new postings were aimed at this direction. Previously when the Governor rule was imposed in Jammu and Kashmir in 2016, the Governor had appointed local retired bureaucrats as his Advisors.
According to sources, since this was for the first time that the BJP had come to power in Jammu and Kashmir and that too as junior coalition partner of the PDP, it had few trusted bureaucrats.
“It was in view of this that that BJP brought the Chief Secretary as well as an Advisor from outside to tighten its grip on the bureaucracy, bring the situation to normalcy and lead to balanced development of all three regions,” they said.
Worthwhile to mention here that BJP general secretary and pointman on Jammu and Kashmir, Ram Madhav had made discrimination with Jammu and Ladakh regions as one of the reasons for withdrawal of support to Mehbooba Mufti-led Government in the State yesterday.
“The BJP now wants to tighten grip over the administration not only to curb militancy and violence but also to push forward its agenda of good governance and balanced development of all three regions of Jammu and Kashmir during the Governor’s rule,” sources said, adding that posting of some Central officers in Jammu and Kashmir was “step in that direction”.
Sources didn’t rule out changes at the administration-level in Jammu and Kashmir very shortly, which would be aimed at curbing militancy and violence in the Valley and giving fillip to developmental works especially the implementation of Centrally Sponsored Schemes.
It may be mentioned here that even during the working of PDP-BJP coalition Government in Jammu and Kashmir headed by Mehbooba Mufti, the Central Government had reports that the Centrally Sponsored Schemes were not being implemented properly and expeditiously, a result of which timelines and cost of various projects had jumped.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
