Punjab chief secretary shunted after row, Vini Mahajan becomes first woman to hold top job in state

Weeks after a showdown with two Punjab ministers, Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh was on Friday replaced by Vini Mahajan, who becomes the first woman to head the bureaucracy in the state.




Karan Avtar Singh was shunted just ahead of his retirement next month, the move following protests earlier by two ministers over his behaviour at a meeting.




While Mahajan, a 1987-batch IAS officer, is now the top bureaucrat in Punjab, her husband Dinkar Gupta heads the state police force as Director General of Police.




Her last posting was as Additional Chief Secretary, Investment Promotion, Industries & Commerce, IT and Governance Reforms and Public Grievances.




She also headed the state’s Health Sector Response & Procurement Committee.




She is currently the only Punjab cadre officer in the state empanelled to hold a Secretary’s post at the Centre, a state government statement said.




She was also the first woman officer to be posted as Deputy Commissioner in Punjab, when she was assigned Ropar district in 1995.




An Economics graduate from Delhi University’s Lady Shri Ram College and a post-graduate from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta, Mahajan served in the office of the then prime minister Manmohan Singh from 2005-2012.




She had then handled matters related to the finance, commerce, industry and telecom sectors.




She was also part of the core team of the central government that put together India''s domestic response during the global financial crisis, according to the state government.




Karan Avtar Singh, a 1984-batch IAS officer, has now been posted as Special Chief Secretary, Governance Reforms and Public Grievances, the Punjab government order said.




Singh, picked by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh in 2017 for the chief secretary''s post, is due to retire at the end of August.




He found himself in the middle of a row with ministers Manpreet Singh Badal and Charanjit Singh Channi complaining about his behaviour at a meeting on May 9.




The ministers were upset over his “curt remarks” at the meeting over liquor licensing and declared they would not attend any meeting in which the bureaucrat participated.




Karan Avtar Singh was then divested of the additional charge of financial commissioner, taxation.




At least 10 Congress legislators led by Amarinder Singh Raja Warring sought a probe against him, blaming him for excise revenue losses.




The chief secretary later apologised for his behaviour and the standoff between him and the ministers appeared to have eased at one point.