Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh government Friday appointed senior IAS officer Awanish Awasthi, who retired on 31 August, as an advisor to CM Yogi Adityanath till February 2023, ending all speculation about his new role.
The appointment of Awasthi — a confidant of the chief minister — was confirmed after Governor Anandiben Patel gave a nod to creation of the ‘temporary’ post of advisor.
A senior government official, who did not wish to be named, told ThePrint that this is the “first post-retirement appointment” of an advisor to a CM in UP in recent years. “Even earlier, officials nearing retirement have been appointed in advisory roles. But they are usually appointed before retirement or on the day of retirement,” the official added.
Awasthi, the 1987-batch IAS officer who is seen as the most powerful bureaucrat in the state that sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha, will “advise the CM on administrative affairs”, according to senior government officials.
Prior to his superannuation, Awasthi had been overseeing the functioning of several important departments like home, confidential, energy, religious affairs, etc.
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Awasthi was appointed additional chief secretary (home) in July 2019 and was overseeing the functioning of this crucial department when the government was formulating its responses to the 2020 anti-CAA protests, the midnight cremation of a 20-year-old Dalit girl in Hathras and the use of bulldozers in Prayagraj to demolish properties owned by those accused of instigating violence earlier this year.
An IIT-Kanpur graduate, he has also served as district magistrate of Lalitpur, Azamgarh, Budaun, Faizabad, Varanasi, Meerut and Gorakhpur, which is UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s constituency.
With the Centre remaining tight-lipped on Awasthi’s extension of service, political circles were abuzz with speculation that he may return to government in an “advisory role”. His presence in a meeting of senior state officials and the members of the UP Braj Teerth Vikas Parishad in Vrindavan last week added to the speculation.
Apart from Awasthi, the meeting was also attended by Principal Secretary (tourism) Mukesh Meshram, Braj Teerth Vikas Parishad vice chairman Shailaja Kant Mishra, Mathura District Magistrate Navneet Singh Chahal, Additional District Magistrate (finance) Yoganand Pandey and Senior Superintendent of Police Gaurav Grover.
A week later, UP Additional Chief Secretary Devesh Chaturvedi, in an order issued Friday evening, confirmed that the governor had given her approval to the creation of a “temporary” post of “advisor to CM” till 28 February 2023, and that Awasthi had been appointed to the post.
“The order is being issued after a consent from the [state] finance department was received on September 16,” read the order, a copy of which is with ThePrint.
The terms of his appointment, including allowances, were noted in another order issued by the state’s Department of Appointment and Personnel (DoAP) Friday. According to the second order, Awasthi will be considered a “temporary government servant” during his tenure as advisor to the CM.
Other babus who overstayed tenure
However, this is not the first time a bureaucrat has been appointed advisor to the CM in Uttar Pradesh.
On 30 June 2016, 1978-batch IAS Alok Ranjan was appointed as the chief advisor to the then CM Akhilesh Yadav. Ranjan’s appointment was made on the last day of his extension as chief secretary of the state.
Considered close to Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav, Ranjan was also given the rank of cabinet minister.
At the time of his retirement, Ranjan was heading a special committee tasked with overseeing the implementation of several of Yadav’s pet projects, including the Gomti riverfront project, the lion safari in Etawah, the perfume park in Kannauj and the Lucknow metro, among others.
In 2007, the Mayawati government’s decision to appoint pilot-turned-civil servant Shashank Shekhar Singh as cabinet secretary — a post many high courts have termed “unconstitutional — had snowballed into a controversy.
When the matter reached the Supreme Court, the UP government was asked to explain the basis for the creation of the post of ‘cabinet secretary’ how an individual who was neither an IAS nor a state administrative service official was elevated to such an influential post.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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