Team News Riveting
Raipur, December 4
An Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer in Chhattisgarh, who was granted two extensions by the Congress government, tendered his resignation soon after change of guard in the state.
The 1986-batch IAS officer, Dr Alok Shukla on Monday put his papers from government services. Interestingly, the officer also vacated his government bungalow Sunday night and shifted to his personal property at the outskirts of the state capital.
The News Riveting could not contact Shukla for his version on the development.
The officer, who has been named as one of the accused in Chhattisgarh’s Nagrik Apurti Nigam (NAN) scam related to public distribution system (PDS), posted his decision in the IAS group. NAN is the nodal agency in Chhattisgarh liable for procuring and distributing food grains under PDS. Besides Shukla, another IAS officer Anil Tuteja is the main accused in the BJP government’s investigation into what came to be known as the NAN scam, which led to the arrest of 27 people.
Soon after the Congress party seized power in Chhattisgarh in 2018, Shukla was appointed principal secretary in charge of the departments of education and others while Tuteja was appointed joint secretary in charge of the industries department. Tuteja bypassed the service protocol and penned an open letter to former Chief Minister Raman Singh.
During the entire Congress regime, Shukla was on extension and served on contractual basis as Principal Secretary. Ironically, he was senior to Chief Secretary Amitabh Jain, who used to call his Principal Secretary as “sir”.
Soon after retirement in 2020, Shukla was granted an extension of three years that was exceptional in the service procedures. After the term expired, he was granted extension for another term.
