Kolkata, Jun 28 (IANS): With just two days left for West Bengal Chief Secretary H.K. Dwivedi's retirement, the state government is to get a reply from the Union government on its proposal to extend his service.

Dwivedi, a 1988-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer is scheduled to retire on June 30. He took over as Chief Secretary in June 2021, succeeding Alapan Bandopadhyay.

The state government had written to the Union government seeking a service extension for Dwivedi. Government sources said that they will wait till Thursday for a communique from the Union government on this count and then decide over the next course of action.

“We are still hopeful that a positive communique on this count might reach the state secretariat at the last moment. If that does not happen, then the state will go for the forthcoming panchayat polls with a new bureaucratic chief,” an officer of the state Personnel & Administrative Reforms Department said.

In the case of the second possibility, the frontrunner for the new Chief Secretary is the current Additional Chief Secretary, Home, B.P. Gopalika, a 1989-batch IAS officer.

In turn, the two names that are floating around as Gopalika’s successor are of Additional Chief Secretary, Finance, Manoj Pant and Additional Chief Secretary, Forest & Animal Resources Department Vivek Kumar.

Sources said that if Pant takes over as the new Home Secretary, the new Finance Secretary will be Land & Land Reforms and Refugee & Rehabilitation Secretary Smaraki Mahapatra