New Delhi/ Chennai: Senior IAS officer Rajeev Ranjan has been named as new Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu. Ranjan belongs to the 1985 batch of the Indian Administrative Service and has held various positions in his 35-year-long service. His predecessor K. Shanmugam's extended tenure as Chief Secretary ended on Sunday afternoon. Rajeev Ranjan (IAS) had been repatriated to his parent cadre (Tamil Nadu) "on the request" of the State government last week only.
Ranjan has an excellent academic record to his credit. He is an alumnus of the Patna University with a graduation degree in physics, also holds an MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad. He has a PG degree in public policy from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a certificate in intellectual property rights from the University of Geneva. He has done a PhD in management from Anna University. During his 35-year-long service as IAS officer Ranjan has held various positions. He began his career as Sub-Collector in Tiruvannamalai (1987-89) and became Tiruchi Collector in April 1995, the post he occupied till August 1997. He was one of the handful of Collectors who survived a regime change in mid-May 1996.
As Director and Joint Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion of the Union Ministry of Industries Commerce during April 2000 to June 2007, he was involved in revamping intellectual property laws and the preparation of national manufacturing strategy and national manufacturing competitiveness programme.
On return to the State cadre, he went to hold different posts including Principal Secretary (Industries) and Chairman and Managing Director of the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation. His stint as Principal Secretary and later as Additional Chief Secretary (Highways) between 2013 and 2018 is cited as a major reason behind his present posting as Chief Secretary as he had worked directly under Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, who is handling the portfolio of Highways Minister since May 2011.
On his deputation to the Centre in September 2018, he was posted as Special Secretary at the GST Council. His innings, which lasted nearly one and a half years, saw the introduction of the e-invoicing system, streamlining of the procedures for taxpayers and sharing of data and data analytics to prevent tax evasion. After he became Fisheries Secretary at the Centre in March 2020, the Centre launched the ₹20,050 crore-Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana to boost production and exports in the fisheries sector.
He is set to superannuate in September this year.
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