Dev to join as new UT Adviser today

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 23

Amid tight security, new UT Advisor Vijay Kumar Dev, a 1987 batch AGMUT cadre IAS officer, will join as the new UT Adviser tomorrow.

Earlier, Dev was posted as the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Delhi.

According to sourcesm there will be tight security for the new Advisor in the wake of recent terror attack in Peshawar in Pakistan. A senior official said the security of all senior officials had been increased.

Sources said that the UT Deputy Commissioner and the SSP would receive him at the Chandigarh-Zirakpur boundry in the afternoon. Dev is coming to the city by road from Delhi.

Thereafter, he will reach the UT Guest House amid tight police security.

Commandos of the UT Police who were earlier posted with the former UT Adviser, KK Sharma, have also been replaced and orders to post new commandos have been issued.

Dev is replacing 1983-batch AGMUT cadre officer, KK Sharma, who had joined as the UT Adviser on April 15, 2011. Sharma was recently relieved by the Union Government.

Dev, who hails from Himachal Pradesh, was awarded by the President for his work as the Deputy Commissioner in Arunachal Pradesh in 1996. He was again awarded for organising both parliamentary and Delhi Assembly polls in a manner that saw record- breaking voting percentage.

Appreciating his work in the field of finance, former Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia awarded him in 2010 when he was posted as the Finance Secretary of Arunachal Pradesh.

Vijay Kumar Dev will be the 15th adviser to the UT administrator. Currently, the post is being handled by UT Home Secretary Anil Kumar.