BR Sharma is border mgmt secy

Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 4

Prominent IAS officer of the Jammu and Kashmir cadre, Braj Raj Sharma, has been promoted and posted as the Secretary, Border Management, Government of India.

He was holding the post of Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs and has been promoted to the rank of Secretary now. A 1984-batch IAS officer, he has served as J&K’s Chief Secretary from September 7, 2015, to April 28, 2017. He was replaced by 1986-batch IAS officer BB Vyas as the Chief Secretary. Braj Raj Sharma was appointed the Adviser to the then Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on administrative affairs.

He has a wide-ranging administrative experience spanning over three and a half decades. After cracking the IAS exam in 1984, he was first appointed as the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Vaishno Devi Shrine Board in 1986. During the 1996 Assembly and parliamentary elections, he served as the District Development Commissioner of north Kashmir’s volatile Kupwara.

In 2003, he left for Australia to pursue Masters in Business Administration and returned to the state in 2004 and was appointed the Divisional Commissioner of Jammu. In 2006, he assumed the charge of Chief Electoral Officer and was tasked with overseeing the state election of 2008 which took place in the aftermath of a paralysing agitation. That election witnessed a huge participation of people and the credit of holding free and fair elections went to him. Hailing from Kathua district of Jammu region, Braj Raj Sharma got his basic teaching from his father and did Masters in Political Science from the University of Jammu. He is also a law graduate from the university.