Uttar Pradesh Reshuffles 14 IAS and 34 PCS Officers in Wide Administrative Rejig

The Uttar Pradesh government has transferred 14 IAS officers and 34 Provincial Civil Service officers in a single set of orders. The changes cover the Board of Revenue, the state's new startup mission, four district development posts and the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust in Varanasi.

Uttar Pradesh has the largest IAS cadre in the country and the largest PCS establishment, and reshuffles of this size are how the state fills district and secretariat vacancies together rather than through individual orders. Chief Development Officer postings, which figure in several of these transfers, place an officer as the second-ranking administrator in a district with charge of rural development, scheme implementation and the district planning process. The Board of Revenue at Prayagraj is the highest revenue court in the state and hears appeals and revisions arising from land records, consolidation and tenancy matters. Its members are drawn from the IAS and the PCS, and the judicial member position carries a heavy pendency of cases from across the state's districts.

Dr Vishram has been appointed Member (Judicial) in the Board of Revenue at Prayagraj, the state's apex revenue court. Sumit Rajesh Mahajan becomes the first Chief Executive Officer of the newly created Uttar Pradesh Startup Mission. Dr Sunil Kumar Verma takes over as Chief Development Officer of Saharanpur. Yoganand Pandey moves up from Additional District Magistrate (City), Ayodhya, to Chief Development Officer of Lakhimpur Kheri, replacing Abhishek Kumar, who becomes Special Secretary in the IT and Electronics Department. Vaibhav Mishra is posted as Chief Development Officer of Ambedkar Nagar. The Chief Development Officer is answerable for the district's performance on rural employment, housing, drinking water and health indicators that are monitored by the state and the Centre, and the post carries the chairing of several district-level committees. Officers are typically posted as CDO after their initial district training and before district magistrate charge.

Vishwabhushan Mishra has been moved from Chief Executive Officer of the Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust and the Varanasi Special Area Development Authority to Deputy Secretary at the Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Services Selection Commission. The Varanasi post carries charge of the temple corridor, its footfall management and the development authority covering the area around it. Neha Sharma has been relieved as Secretary of the Medical Education Department, and Anand Kumar Shukla is transferred as Special Secretary and Director of the Silk Department.

The creation of a Chief Executive Officer post for the Uttar Pradesh Startup Mission indicates the state is setting up a dedicated body rather than running the programme through the IT department. The state has announced incubator networks across districts and a fund of funds arrangement for early-stage companies. The IT and Electronics Department, where Abhishek Kumar moves as Special Secretary, handles the data centre policy and the electronics manufacturing clusters the state has been promoting. The Kashi Vishwanath corridor, completed in 2021, connects the temple to the Ganga ghats and has drawn very large visitor numbers, which places crowd management, revenue handling and facility maintenance on the trust's chief executive. The Varanasi Development Authority charge held alongside it covers land use and construction approval in the surrounding area.

The 34 PCS transfers in the same order include Pradeep Kumar Singh, Renu Mishra, Pradyumna Kumar and Ajay Narayan Singh. PCS officers hold Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Additional District Magistrate and directorate posts across the state's 75 districts, and the two cadres are moved together so that district administrative teams are filled in one round. The Silk Department directorate, to which Anand Kumar Shukla moves, handles the state's sericulture programme, and the Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Services Selection Commission, where Vishwabhushan Mishra is posted as Deputy Secretary, conducts recruitment to Group C posts in the state government. Both carry their own administrative load independent of the district structure.

The orders were issued by the Uttar Pradesh government and cover 14 IAS officers and 34 PCS officers.