Haryana CM Khattar’s confidant Rajesh Khullar gets more power with 18 depts

Pradeep Sharma

Chandigarh, February 7

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s man Friday and Chief Principal Secretary Rajesh Khullar has emerged as more powerful in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) ahead of this year’s Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

In a reshuffle of departments in the CMO, retired bureaucrat Khullar will call the shots with at least 18 crucial departments under his belt. Principal Secretary to CM V Umashankar will have to be content with 10 departments only.

Besides being the overall in-charge of the CMO, Khullar will look after the legislative business to be taken before the Council of Ministers, architecture, administration of justice, citizen resources information, excise and taxation, energy, foreign cooperation and general administration, personnel and training, hospitality and training.

The home and criminal justice, industries and commerce, information, public relations, languages and culture, jails, public health engineering, PWD, rehabilitation, revenue and disaster management, town and country planning and urban estates and CMO establishment will also be under him.

Umashankar will be the in-charge of civil aviation, cooperation, development and panchayats, finance, mines and geology, planning, social justice, empowerment, welfare of SCs and BCs and Antodaya(SEWA), transport, urban local bodies and youth empowerment and entrepreneurship.

By the sheer number of departments, Ashima Brar, Additional Principal Secretary to the CM, will be at No 2 after Khullar with 11 departments. These included agriculture and farmers welfare, animal husbandry and dairying, elections, fisheries, food, civil supplies and consumer affairs, housing for all, labour, printing and stationery, sainik and ardh sainik welfare, sports and women and child development.

Another Additional Principal Secretary to CM Amit Kumar Agrawal will be the in-charge of archives, Ayush, environment, forests and wildlife, health, heritage and tourism, higher education, Kurukshetra Development Board, medical education and research and school education.

While Adviser to CM (Irrigation) Devender Singh will hold the charge of irrigation and water resources, works related to implementation of CM’s announcements, monitoring the performance of various departments under CM Window, Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to CM Bhupeshwar Dayal will continue to look after grievances and the CM Window. Another OSD to CM Sudhanshu Gautam will look after allotment of houses, CM announcements, CM Relief Fund , Haryana Rural Development Fund and other sanctions, Human Resources Management System(HRMS) and online transfer policy and Wakf.