Senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer V. Srinivas took charge as the new Chief Secretary of Rajasthan in Jaipur on Monday (November 17, 2025), replacing Sudhansh Pant, who has been shifted to the Centre on deputation. Mr. Srinivas, a 1989-batch officer, had also spent the last seven years on deputation in New Delhi.
Along with the Chief Secretary’s post, Mr. Srinivas will hold the additional charge of chairman of the Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals Limited and the State’s Principal Resident Commissioner in New Delhi. He will serve till September 2026, when he is scheduled to retire.
Mr. Srinivas was earlier serving as the Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, in the Union government. He has superseded one IAS officer in the seniority list, as he is the second most senior officer in the Rajasthan cadre after Subodh Agarwal of the 1988 batch.
Mr. Pant’s sudden departure from the State in the middle of his tenure as the Chief Secretary has been viewed as an instance of the Centre exercising influence over key bureaucratic appointments. A major administrative reshuffle is likely to follow Mr. Srinivas’s appointment, with changes expected in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) and in some key departments.
Mr. Srinivas said after assuming office at the State Secretariat here that he would develop a roadmap for implementing the State government’s vision of “Viksit Rajasthan-2047” and attracting investments to key sectors. “My primary objective will be to establish a better coordination among all departments and pursue the priority sector programmes with speedy and effective implementation of the government’s plans,” he said.
The new Chief Secretary said the State had witnessed significant innovations in agriculture, watershed development, health care and social security, and several of these models had been adopted at the Centre as well. The implementation of MoUs signed during the Rising Rajasthan Global Investment Summit-2024 would also be expedited, he added.
A seasoned bureaucrat, Mr. Srinivas has held several key positions in the State and at the Centre. He worked as private secretary to then External Affairs and Finance Minister Jaswant Singh during the NDA government and later served in Washington, D.C., as the technical assistant to India’s Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund.
Published – November 18, 2025 04:34 am IST
