The Union government has given a six-month extension to Madhya Pradesh Chief Secretary Basant Pratap Singh, who was due to retire at the end of this month. The six-month extension to the 1984-batch IAS officer is the fourth such move for senior bureaucrats across India in the last few months.
Earlier, Bharat Bhushan Vyas, a 1986-batch IAS officer, got an extension of one year as chief secretary of Jammu and Kashmir. In February this year, Bihar Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh was given a service extension of three months. He has been chief secretary of Bihar since June 2014. Similarly, Karnataka Chief Secretary K. Ratna Prabha was given a three-month extension in April this year due to Assembly elections in the state.
The six-month extension to Singh puts an end to all the speculation about a new chief secretary in the state, which is scheduled to go to polls in November this year. The proposal for the extension of service was sent a few months back, but the Prime Minister's Office seemingly chose to respond on Friday when it issued orders a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Madhya Pradesh.
With the extension, Singh, who became chief secretary in November 2016, replacing Anthony JC de Sa, is the second chief secretary in Madhya Pradesh to get an extension during an election year. Earlier, in the 2013 poll year, chief secretary R. Parasuram was given an extension.
Singh, who is the 30th chief secretary of Madhya Pradesh, is a native of Uttar Pradesh, born in 1958. He studied philosophy at Allahabad University.