Miffed with Nitish Kumar, IAS Sudhir Kumar Rakesh seeks voluntary retirement

According to well-informed sources, the 1983-batch IAS officer wasn't happy with the state bureaucracy over Nitish Kumar's new administrative instrument, the Bihar Vikas Mission

Mumbai, February 26: Bihar’s one of senior most IAS officers, Sudhir Kumar Rakesh, has applied for the voluntary retirement scheme following difference of opinion in the state bureaucracy over Nitish Kumar’s new administrative instrument, the Bihar Vikas Mission.

As a 1983-batch officer, Rakesh was posted as the principal secretary of the panchayati raj department with additional charge as director-general of the Bihar Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development. He sought voluntary retirement on February 23 and requested to be relieved from duty by August 31, exactly a year prior to his official retirement date.

Though there was no reaction from Rakesh, well-informed sources revealed that he was unhappy with the way things panned out in the Bihar Vikas Mission where Nitish’s poll strategist and advisor Prashant Kishor is the key figure. The state administration had formed the Mission, with the Chief Minister being the chairperson, to ensure Nitish’s  seven resolves for the state are implemented on priority basis. Kishor, other ministers, chief secretary, development commissioner, principal secretaries, secretaries, director general of police, and the Mission director are the members of the panel, according to a report in The Telegraph.

According to some senior IAS officers, the Mission was the root cause behind Rakesh’s move to apply for voluntary retirement, and that he resented reporting to Kishor as well as 1994-batch IAS officer Atish Chandra, who is secretary to the chief minister and has been recently appointed as the Mission director. (Also Read: Rail budget lacks vision, says Nitish Kumar)

Talks of resentment are doing the rounds and people in the know say if the chief minister really wanted that people should follow Kishor, he should have made him a minister. Then none of the administrative officers would have felt bad.

The department Rakesh looks after is closely involved in implementation of Nitish’s resolves; it will provide Rs 6,000 crore per year till 2020 to 8,397 panchayats in the state to ensure piped water supply, pucca lanes and drains, and streetlights. Both serving and retired IAS officers were surprised to know that Rakesh has sought voluntary retirement.

As far as academics are concerned, the 58-year-old is a economics graduate from Patna College who was sent to West Bengal as special observer during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Rakesh is also known as a avid reader and cricket fan. He has also written newspaper articles on sport.