Veera Rana, chief secretary of Madhya Pradesh, has been granted an extension of six months ahead of Lok Sabha elections. Rana, a 1988-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, is due to retire on March 31, 2024. Now she will serve till September 30, 2024. The BuckStopper was the first to report that Rana may get extension of either three or six years in its report dated January 18, 2024.
The central government has given its nod to the proposal of Madhya Pradesh government. Rana was appointed as the acting chief secretary on November 30, 2020 and was later given complete charge of chief secretary on January 17, 2024.
Since Rana was appointed by former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, there were speculations that she may get changed. But the BJP government under the new leadership decided to retain her.
Veera Rana is the sixth chief secretary to get extension
Before Veera Rana, five former chief secretaries – Iqbal Bains, B P Singh, R Parshuram, RP Kapoor and Harish Khanna had also got extension in their service tenure.
Veera Rana is the second woman chief secretary of Madhya Pradesh after Nirmala Buch l, who remained on the post from September 1991 to January 1993 in the tenure of former chief minsiter Sundar Lal Patwa.
In last two months, Veera Rana has had a good working relationship with chief minister Mohan Yadav. Before implementation of code of conduct, the Madhya Pradesh government had a massive reshuffling of IAS and IPS officers. As many as 95 IAS and IPS officers were changed in a day. Collectors and SPs of many districts were changed keeping in mind the upcoming elections.
The chief minister has given free hand to the chief secretary for running the administration. She has been quite effective in her three months tenure.
The BuckStopper, run by a group of seasoned journalists, holds the powerful accountable. The buck stops with them, as they cannot shrug off their official responsibilities.
