Lucknow, Jul 7 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday appointed senior IAS officer Deepak Singhal as the new state Chief Secretary. The 1982-batch officer was holding the post of Principal Secretary (Irrigation) as of now.
Close to Public Works Department Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav, Singhal took charge of the top bureaucratic post in the state in the evening.
Previous Chief Secretary Alok Ranjan after serving a three-month extension retired on June 30. Agriculture Production Commissioner Praveer Kumar was the acting Chief Secretary since then.
Singhal is the third officer to be appointed Chief Secretary during the Samajwadi party (SP) government's rule. As soon as the SP government was sworn in four years ago, 1978-batch official Javed Usmani was made the Chief Secretary. He was succeeded by Alok Ranjan in 2014.