In a major bureaucratic reshuffle, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Wednesday shunted out three senior IAS officers from CMO.
Senior bureaucrat and former Chief Secretary Ajeya Kallam, who was appointed as principal advisor to Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, has been relieved of his CMO duties. His removal from CMO comes in the wake of his recent comments against Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Ajeya Kallam fired the Finance Minister for her observations that the Andhra Pradesh government was imposing power charges of Rs 9.75 per unit on industries even as the central government was supplying power to the state government at Rs 2.75 per unit to industries. Ajeya Kallam stated that Andhra Pradesh was actually buying power from the public sector units at a high rate of Rs 5.5 lakh per megawatt. He also pointed out that the Andhra Pradesh government has not changed the tariff of Rs 7.65 per unit set for industries by the previous TDP government.
Apart from Ajay Kallam, two other senior bureaucrats including P V Ramesh and J Murali have been relieved of their CMO duties. In their place,
Jagan Mohan Reddy appointed Solomon Arokya Raj, Praveen Prakash and Dhananjay Reddy.
Praveen Prakash, principal secretary to CM, has been entrusted with general administration department, home, revenue, finance and planning, law and legislative affairs, CMO’s establishment and residual subjects, exclusive node in CMO’s to deal with entire spectrum of Centre-State relations, including issues related to State Reorganisation Act, all issues related to Chief Minister’s correspondence to Prime Minister, Cabinet ministers.
Solomon Arokya Raj, secretary to CM, has been entrusted with transport, roads and buildings, housing, food and civil supplies, consumer affairs, panchayat raj and rural development, education (school, intermediate, higher and technical), all welfare departments, industries and commerce, infrastructure and investment, IT, electronics and communication, mines and geology.
Dhananjaya Reddy, additional secretary to CM, has been entrusted with water resources, environment, forests, science and technology, MAUD, agriculture and allied subjects, health, medical and family welfare department, tourism, energy.
