A. Santhi Kumari is new Telangana Chief Secretary

The State government issued orders to this effect on Wednesday, with the notification to be published in the extraordinary issue of the Telangana Gazette.

Hyderabad: Senior IAS officer A Santhi Kumari has been appointed as the new Chief Secretary of Telangana State. Following orders from Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, the 1989 batch IAS officer took charge as the first woman Chief Secretary of the State at the Secretariat in BRK Bhavan at 3.15 pm on Wednesday.

Santhi Kumari will take over from incumbent Somesh Kumar, who was relieved from the Telangana government by the union Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) on Tuesday and asked to join the Andhra Pradesh government by January 12, following the Telangana High Court quashing the 2016 order of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) allocating the officer to Telangana.

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Shortly after taking charge, the new Chief Secretary called on the Chief Minister at Pragathi Bhavan and thanked him for the opportunity. The Chief Minister congratulated her on the occasion. She was holding the post of Special Chief Secretary for Environment and Forests, prior to her appointment as Chief Secretary.

Santhi Kumari, whose tenure will be till April 2025, is a postgraduate in marine biology and completed her MBA in the US. She served in various capacities in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh and later in Telangana during a career spanning over three decades. She served in various positions in the Poverty Alleviation, Inclusive Development, Revenue, Rural Development, Tribal Welfare, Education and Health, Skill Development and Forestry sectors.

Among noted positions in her career, the senior IAS officer worked in the Chief Minister’s Office for four years as Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister and headed the ‘Industry Chasing Cell’ in the Telangana CMO which is mandated to implement Single Window Industrial Clearances under the name ‘TS-iPASS’. A native of Andhra Pradesh, she also served as the District Collector of Medak in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh during 1999-2001. She also served with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for two years overseeing financial inclusion.