Anurag Verma new Chief Secretary of Punjab, to replace Vijay Kumar Janjua

Chandigarh, June 26

Anurag Verma, a 1993-batch IAS officer, will be the new Chief Secretary of Punjab. He will take over the charge from incumbent Vijay Kumar Janjua on July 1 upon the latter’s superannuation on June 30. Verma has headed various key departments, including Excise and Taxation, Revenue, Rural Development, Home and Justice and Industries. In his race to the post, he saw competition from two of his seniors – 1990-batch officer Vijoy Kumar Singh and 1992-batch officer KAP Sinha.

Verma supersedes 10 other IAS officers, including two former Chief Secretaries Vini Mahajan and Anirudh Tiwari. Of the 10 officers, seven posted here – Sinha, Tiwari, Anurag Agarwal, A Venu Prasad, Seema Jain, Saravjit Singh and Raji P Srivastava — will be designated as Special Chief Secretaries consequent to the appointment of Verma as Chief Secretary.

Talking to The Tribune, Verma said his top priority would be to effectively implement people-friendly initiatives at the grassroots level. “My focus will be on effectively strengthening the work already initiated by the government in the health and education sectors. Transparency and orientation towards public welfare will be accorded top priority,” he said.

One of the challenges the new Chief Secretary is expected to face will be in his other role as Principal Secretary, Personnel and Vigilance. This is because of AAP government’s anti-corruption drive, which after “unearthing dark sheep among politicians” is all set to act against “dark sheep in bureaucracy”.