Ajeya Kallam assumed charge as Chief Secretary (CS) of Andhra Pradesh on March 1st. However, the 1983 batch IAS officer, will retire on March 31 and is all set to be succeeded by Dinesh Kumar.

A common G.O. was issued regarding the appointments thus removing all hopes of extension for Kallam. However officials, said that the state government had tried its best to secure extension for Kallam but the Centre turned down its request. A lot of them did not buy this argument as the government named his successor in advance. Generally, Chief Secretaries are extended for 6 more months. This happened myriad times with DGP’s and CS’s. However, Naidu didn’t even try seriously to get extension, seen as an affront to Kallam. In fact, if Naidu wanted to seriously consider Kallam he could have done six months back instead of extending S.P. Tucker.

If the grapevine from the CM circles is to be believed, a major infra group based out of Hyderabad lobbied for Dinesh Kumar, currently a special CS for Housing and Rural Development. This group which is in huge losses with its investments in airports wants to get infrastructure projects in Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh. The group is infact bidding seriously for highways in the captial and Amaravati – Bangalore highway. The State government issuing a single G.O. appointing Mr. Ajeya Kallam and Dinesh Kumar, effectively made Ajeya Kallam a lame duck. Also another senior IAS AK Parida was sidestepped.

However, the officials blame it on the center. They also cited a similar case in neighboring Telangana where a request for an extension of K Pradeep Chandra who had got only one month to serve as CS in December was rejected.