Bihar Transfers 17 IAS Officers, Pankaj Kumar Named Principal Secretary, Home

Pankaj Kumar, who was serving as Principal Secretary in the Rural Development department, has been appointed Principal Secretary, Home, as part of a reshuffle of 17 IAS officers ordered by the Bihar government.

The Home department oversees police administration, law and order, prisons and disaster management across Bihar's 38 districts, working in close coordination with the Director General of Police. The posting places Kumar at the centre of the state's security apparatus at a time when law-and-order performance draws continuing political attention, pairing one of the government's most closely watched portfolios with an officer whose recent record has been in rural development rather than policing.

Kumar had earlier held the Rural Development portfolio, which administers the state's rural employment guarantee scheme, housing programmes and panchayati raj coordination — one of the larger welfare-delivery departments in the state given the scale of Bihar's rural population. His career has spanned multiple departments within the Bihar cadre, and this posting marks his first tenure heading the Home department, a shift from welfare-delivery administration to security-focused governance that will test a different set of administrative skills.

Rajesh Kumar, who headed the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) as Principal Secretary, has been moved to Commissioner, Patna Division, a post overseeing district administration across the state capital's surrounding region. His transfer follows a stint managing the department responsible for rural and urban water-supply infrastructure, a portfolio that has drawn continuing scrutiny over piped-water coverage targets.

The reshuffle circulates several senior secretaries at once. Mayank Warwade, who was Commissioner of Patna Division, has been named Principal Secretary, Vigilance, while H.R. Srinivas moves from Additional Chief Secretary, Social Welfare to Additional Chief Secretary, Rural Development, effectively taking over the department Kumar vacated. Sanjay Kumar, previously Secretary, Finance, becomes Secretary, Prohibition, a department central to the state's liquor-ban enforcement, and Rajiv Roshan moves from Secretary, Higher Education to Secretary, Education, placing him in charge of the state's larger and more politically sensitive school-education apparatus.

B. Karthikeya Dhanji moves from Secretary, Minor Water Resources to Secretary, PHED, filling the vacancy left by Rajesh Kumar, while Vinay Kumar has been named Principal Secretary, Finance and Vinod Singh Gunjiyal has been posted as Secretary, Social Welfare. Dr Chandrashekhar Singh moves from Secretary, Water Resources to Secretary, Minor Water Resources, and Arvind Chaudhary has been appointed Director General of the Bihar Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development (BIPARD), the state training institute that prepares officers for field postings. The order also reassigns six District Magistrates — Manesh Kumar Meena to Bhojpur, Richie Pandey to Begusarai, Vijay Prakash Meena to Siwan, Kumar Anurag to Kaimur, and Tanay Sultania moving from Bhojpur to Sitamarhi.

The changes come as the state administration heads into a period requiring coordinated delivery on law-and-order, rural infrastructure and prohibition enforcement — three portfolios that have all changed hands in this single order. The transfer order was issued by the Bihar General Administration Department and takes effect immediately across all 17 postings.