UP government has promoted 13 IAS officers as Additional Chief Secretary. The officers promoted are: Avneesh Awasthi, Principal Secretary, Information; Arun Singhal, Joint Secretary GOI, Mahesh Kumar Gupta, Principal Secretary, Secretariat Administration; Leena Nandan, Joint Secretary GOI; Renuka Kumar, Principal Secretary, Forest and Environment; Devasheesh Panda, Joint Secretary GOI; Sanjeev Kumar Mittal, Principal Secretary, Finance; Rama Raman, Commissioner and Director, Handloom and Textiles; Sunil Kumar, Joint Secretary GOI and Jiwesh Nandan, Joint Secretary GOI. The meeting of the departmental promotion committee (DPC) was presided by the Chief Secretary Rajiv Kumar. There were 12 names before the committee but it recommended only 10 officers for promotion. The orders were issued following the approval by the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The two officers left are Hemant Rao and PV Jaganmohan. The IAS officers promoted as additional Chief Secretary are from 1986 and 1987 batch. This is for the first time that the officers of two batches have been promoted in one year. This was the long standing demand of the UP IAS officers' association. The promotion of 10 IAS officers to the scale of Additional Chief Secretary has given plenty of option to the state government choose the next Chief Secretary. Meanwhile, the DPC has also recommended the grant of the higher pay scale to 6 senior PCS officers. The orders will be issued as soon the proposal is approved by the Chief Minister. These officers will get the pay scale (Rs 67,000-79,000) of the principal secretary to the government without being inducted to the state cadre of the IAS. These officers are: Satish Kumar -II Additional Commissioner, Moradabad; Akhilesh Kumar, Additional Commissioner, Allahabad; Ram Avtar, Additional Director, Economics and Statistics Wing; Amitabh Prakash, Special Secretary, Housing, Shiv Bhushan Tewari, Additional Commissioner, Moradabad; Satyabhan, Additional Administrator, Sharda Sahayak Command Area Development Authority.