Alapan Bandopadhyay has been appointed as the new chief secretary of West Bengal. A 1987-batch IAS officer of West Bengal cadre, Mr Bandopadhyay is currently ACS, home department.

He will take over the new responsibility on 1 October from incumbent Rajiva Sinha following his retirement on 30 September.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today tweeted, “I’m pleased to announce that Alapan Bandyopadhyay, now Addnl Chief Secy Home and Information is appointed as the new Chief Secretary of WB,”.

“Best wishes to the entire team,” she added.

Mr Bandopadhyay has been in several key positions in the state government. He was principal secretary of the transport, urban development and municipal affairs departments among others, and has been municipal commissioner of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.

He is also considered as a key crisis manager for the state and had stepped in as temporary state election commissioner in 2015 in an unprecedented situation, when S Upadhyay had resigned citing “personal reasons” amid ongoing civic polls.

Current finance secretary HK Dwivedi, has been appointed as the new home secretary. Mr Dwivedi will hold the additional charge of parliamentary affairs and planning and statistics and programme monitoring departments.

Manoj Pant, principal secretary of land and land reforms and refugee and rehabilitation department will take charge of the finance department. He will hold the additional charge of the land and land reforms and refugee and rehabilitation departments.

Outgoing CS, Mr Sinha was lauded by Ms Banerjee for competently tackling the Amphan and COVID crisis in the state last week.

Mr Sinha had taken over as the chief secretary in 2019 following the retirement of Malay De, who was considered Ms Banerjee’s crisis manager in the state administration. Appreciating Mr Sinha’s tireless services, Miss Banerjee announced that Mr Sinha is being appointed as the Chairman of West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation on Monday.

“I would also like to announce that outgoing Chief Secretary of West Bengal Shri Rajiva Sinha, has now been appointed the Chairman of West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation for a period of three years w.e.f 1st October. I thank him for his tireless service to GoWB.”

Besides, the state government today made a major bureaucratic reshuffle of six other officials. Kanwanjit Singh Cheema, principal secretary of sunderban affairs has been posted as principal secretary of tribal development department.

He will continue to hold additional charge of sunderban affairs department.

Transport secretary Prabhat Kumar Mishra has been transferred to the water resources investigation department with additional charge of fisheries department. Rajesh Kumar Sinha, currently tribal development secretary has been appointed as transport secretary.

Rajesh Pandey, principal secretary MSME and textiles has been given additional responsibility of public health engineering department.

Santanu Basu, WBSEDCL chairman has been appointed as the new information and cultural affairs secretary with additional charge of WBSEDCL. Sumit Gupta, joint secretary health and family welfare has been posted as executive director of West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation.