Jairaj is back at BCC helm

At a time when pressure is mounting on the state government from all quarters to set right the crumbling infrastructure and deteriorating civic services of the city, senior IAS officer K Jairaj has been brought back to head the Bangalore City Corporation (BCC) as its commissioner.

Jairaj had an earlier stint as the BCC commissioner in the erstwhile Congress government led by S M Krishna between September 1999 and October 2000. A expert in public administration, Jairaj who formerly headed the Bangalore Management Association, was instrumental in implementing the Rs 224 crore Municipal Bond scheme for improving city roads.

He was also the member secretary of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF), a public-private partnership aimed at providing intellectual input for the city's development programmes which died after the advent of the Dharam Singh government.

Later, Jairaj served as the principal secretary to chief minister S M Krishna. For the last two years, he was on a World Bank assignment. The order, posting him as the BCC commissioner, was issued on Thursday. K Jothiramalingam, who was the BCC commissioner, has been posted as principal secretary, labour. Another 32 IAS officers have been transferred and assigned different postings.

Prominent among them are outgoing BDA commissioner M N Vidyashankar, considered a performer. He has been posted as medical education secretary.

M K Shankaralinge Gowda, till now the information secretary, is the new BDA commissioner. Anup K Pujari is the new IT oBT secretary while Vatsala Watsa is the new home secretary. M R Kamble is the finance secretary (expenditure).

Among other new postings are: K M Shivakumar as principal secretary (commerce and industry), Kaushik Mukherjee as principal secretary (higher education), Lakshmi Venkatachalam as principal secretary (urban development), Sobha Nambisan as the managing director of Karnataka State Industrial Investment and Development Corporation, Ashok Kumar C Manoli as the handloom development commissioner, Sandeep Dave as the horticulture and agriculture secretary and D N Nayak as the executive officer of the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board.

Besides, 19 IPS officers and 35 KAS officers have been transferred and given different postings. This is the first major reshuffle of the bureaucracy since the Karnataka Development Front (KDF) government assumed power in January this year.