Mumbai, Nov 28 (IANS) The Maharashtra government on Friday appointed Rajesh Agarwal, an IAS of the 1989 batch, as the state chief secretary.

Agarwal, who recently came back from his deputation in Delhi, was appointed as the additional chief secretary in the state general administration as in charge of administrative reforms and good governance.

He is expected to get a one-year tenure as the state chief secretary.

Agarwal will take over from the outgoing CS Rajesh Kumar. whose three-month extension completes on November 30. Kumar, who took over as the CS on June 30, was to retire on September 30 but got a month’s extension up to November 30.

With the appointment of Agarwal, another contender and additional chief secretary of the Home Department, Iqbal Chahal, will miss this post as he retires in January 2026.

Before coming back to Maharashtra, he was Secretary of the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Secretary of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship, Additional Chief Secretary and Financial Advisor in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

He had worked as the Director General of Training in the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of tribal affairs, and Joint Secretary in the Department of Financial Services.

Before moving to Delhi, Agarwal had held many posts in Maharashtra, including principal secretary of the information technology department.

After a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Delhi, Agarwal drifted to the Indian Administrative Service in 1989. He is into data Analytics on various Citizen databases, for weeding out bogus beneficiaries and targeting subsidies to genuine beneficiaries.

He has been advocating the use of eGovernance, the use of technology to reduce or remove corruption, and for better Service Delivery.

During his tenure, he was associated with Aadhaar and Jan Dhan Missions, and introduced Digilocker and Jeevan Parman.

He also contributed to cyber-jurisprudence in the country by writing more than 70 judgments as an Adjudicating Officer under the IT Act.

–IANS

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