MP: Kamal Nath transfers 24 collectors at midnight

BHOPAL: The expected bureaucratic churn happened just before midnight on Thursday, with chief minister Kamal Nath shifting 48 IAS officers, including 24 district collectors.


Some officers were relieved of additional charge — the eye catcher being additional chief secretary Manoj Shrivastava, who was a day ago appointed VC of Sanchi University. He is left with animal husbandry department alone in the new setup, with additional charge of Vyapam.

In the massive chop-and-change, three days after Nath took oath as CM, Manu Shrivastava — principal secretary, new and renewable energy, and MD of Urja Vikas Nigam — has been given charge of commercial tax department too, said a press release.

Sources said that CM Nath is likely to appoint a retired bureaucrat of Indian Audit and Account Services as OSD and a retired bureaucrat of MP, who had joined Congress in Punjab, as administrative advisor. Nath could appoint a senior journalist or retired officer as media advisor.

Collectors of Indore, Dhar, Ujjain, Ratlam and Katni were retained. The collectors who have been shifted include Abhishek Singh to Sidhi, Tarun Pithode from Sehore to Betul, Bharat Yadav from Morena to Gwalior, OP Shrivastava from Mandsaur to Rewa.

Rewa collector who asked to shoot at EVM intruders transferred

The collectors who have been transferred: Preeti Maithil from Rewa to Sagar, Satyendra Singh from Burhanpur to Satna, Shrinivas Sharma from Jabalpur to Chhindwara, Deepak Saxena to Narsinghpur, Ashish Saxena from Jhabua to Hoshangabad, Priyanka Das from Hoshangabad to Morena, Vasant Kurre to Sheopur, RPS Jadon to Datia, Surbhi Gupta to Dindori, Gopal Chandra Dad from Seoni to Khargone, Shamimuddin to Alirajpur, Dhanraju S from Bhind to Mandsaur, Ganesh Shankar Mishra from Alirajpur to Sehore, Bhaskar Lakshkar to Guna, Chhote Singh to Bhind, Anugrah P from Anuppur to Shivpuri, Neeraj Kumar Singh to Damoh, Chandra Mohan Thakur from PEB to Anuppur and Deepak Arya to Balaghat.

District collectors who have been shifted to Mantralaya and other departments in the state government include Ashok Verma from Gwalior, Vedprakash from Chhindwara, Durg VIjay Singh from Balaghat, Rahul Jain from Satna to Town and Country Planning, Bhopal, Shashank Mishra from Betul, Abhay Kumar Verma from Narsinghpur, Shipla Gupta from Shivpuri, Shashi Bhushan Singh from Khargone, Vijay Kumar Jay from Damoh, B Vijay Dutta from Guna, Mohit Bundas from Dindori, Rohit Singh from Jabalpur, Saurabh Suman from Sheopur, Dilip Kumar from Sidhi, Virendra Singh Rawat from Datia and Alok Kumar Singh from Sagar.

Senior officer Rajni Singh has been appointed as CEO Jabalpur, Sheetla Patel as additional collector, Betul, and Harshika Singh has been moved to Mantralaya. Sources in the secretariat said Shrivastava paid the price for being perceived as close to the Sangh Parivar. Also, during BJP regime, he was embroiled in a controversy involving former CM Digvijaya Singh.