Senior bureaucrat Madhu Rani Teotia has been appointed the secretary of Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta. The notice was issued late this evening by Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena. Born in 1981, she is a 2008 batch IAS officer. 

There is speculation that the officer has been handpicked by the Chief minister, not only because she was brought up in Delhi but also because traditionally, picking a secretary is the Chief Minister’s prerogative.

Ms Teotia had previously served as Additional Chief Executive Officer at the National Health Authority under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Before becoming an IAS, Ms Teotia was a homeopathic doctor and then she took a management degree. She became an IAS officer in 2008. Her name became known after the murder of her husband, IPS officer Narendra Singh, by the local mining mafia in Morena in 2012.

Narendra Kumar Singh —  a dynamic officer, who had seized many vehicles carrying illegally mined stones and sand — was crushed under the wheels of a tractor-trolley driven by an alleged member of the mining mafia in Morena when he tried to stop the vehicle carrying stones. It had triggered fear among the police in the state.

Ms Teotia and Singh had got married in 2009 and she gave birth to a child a few days after her husband was killed. Ms Teotia had demanded a CBI inquiry into the murder.

Later, the Central government considered it a special case and allowed her to change her cadre and she was shifted from MP cadre to AGMUT. 

The transfer order from the Services Department of the Delhi government also said that 2011-batch AGMUT cadre IAS officers Sandeep Kumar Singh and Ravi Jha would serve as Special Secretaries to the Chief Minister.

Mr Jha is currently serving as the Excise Commissioner of Delhi, while Singh, who is posted outside, will join the Delhi government after serving as the Private Secretary to the Union Minister for Culture and Tourism.

Also, 2007-batch IAS officer Azimul Haque was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Delhi Waqf Board, while the additional charge of Member (Administration) in the Delhi Jal Board was handed over to 2014-batch officer Sachin Rana.

Mr Haque had previously served as Member (Administration) in the DJB while holding the additional charge of the Delhi Waqf Board. Mr Rana had been posted as Additional Chief Executive Officer in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi.

(With agencies)