Dr Sameer Sharma to be AP's new Chief Secretary

The Andhra Pradesh government on Friday finally appointed 1985 batch IAS officer Sameer Sharma as the state's next Chief Secretary.

Sameer Sharma is now the Special Chief Secretary, Planning and Resource Mobilisation, and also the Vice-Chairman of the Institute of Leadership, Excellence, and Governance.

He will assume charge as the state Chief Secretary on September 30 upon the retirement of incumbent Aditya Nath Das at the end of his three-month extended tenure.

The General Administration Department issued an order to this effect on Friday. The state government did not seek a further three-month extension for Das, leading to the appointment of Sameer Sharma as the next Chief Secretary.

Several names did the rounds for the Chief Secretary's post in the last few weeks and till last week, 1986 batch IAS officer Satish Chandra remained the frontrunner.

''The equations seemed to have changed in the last one week and suddenly Sameer sir emerged the No. 1,'' a top bureaucrat said.

Sameer Sharma is due to retire from service on November 30 this year.

However, it is expected that he too may get an extension in service, like his predecessors.

He returned to the state cadre from Central deputation in July this year, after having served as the Director-General of the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs.

Sameer Sharma is an academician and scholar and has authored many books like Smart Cities Unbundled, A Textbook on Urban Planning and Geography, and Hourglass Management Paradigm.

An expert in urban development affairs, Sharma had earlier served as Director of National Smart Cities Mission.

He was the only IAS officer to have served as the Commissioner of three major municipal corporations of Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, and Greater Hyderabad in the erstwhile united AP and contributed to their financial turnaround.

He did his Masters and doctorate in Community Planning in the United States of America.

As Chairman and Managing Director of Indian Tourism Development Corporation, Sharma designed a model for strategic planning and executed the Balance Scorecard system that led to a 30 percent increase in revenues of the hotel chain.

He worked as a consultant for UN-Habitat in Cambodia and the International Federation of Red Cross Societies.

Sharma received awards from the President of India and the Prime Minister for his path-breaking initiatives in the promotion of community organizations in slums and reforms in governance under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.