The Tamil Nadu government is believed to have favored the names of senior officers K Shanmugam (IAS:1985:TN) and J K Tripathy (IPS:1985:TN) as the next chief secretary and director general of police (law and order) and head of the police force respectively. Both are from the 1985 batch.

 

Recommendations to this effect were said to have been made to the state governor who is expected to make the announcement today or tomorrow.

 

Further, it is expected that the senior IAS officer S Krishnan, now heading the housing department, may take over the Finance department from Shanmugam.

 

Shanmugam will be the 46th chief secretary of the state after incumbent Girija Vaidyanathan retires from service this month-end. His long stint in the finance department has helped Shanmugam get the coveted post, despite being sixth on the seniority list.

 

Hailing from a village near Valappady in Salem, Shanmugam is a first graduate in a middle-class farming family. His first posting was as assistant collector training in Thanjavur in 1985. He next moved to Cheranmahadevi in Tirunelveli district as subcollector, before holding various key posts, including that of deputy commissioner of commercial taxes, director of sericulture, collector of Sivaganga and Pudukottai districts, director of rural development, chairman and managing director of TN Civil Supplies Corporation and later secretary, food department.

 

Shanmugam has been holding the post of finance secretary since May 2010.  Tripathy, who is from Odisha, was chosen as the new DGP from a list of six candidates vetted by the Union Public Service Commission. The officer, with his impeccable record in the police force spanning over three decades, will succeed T K Rajendran, whose term ends this month-end.