On August 9, 2012 Goa Government appointed B Vijayan, IAS as its’ next Chief Secretary. Vijayan’s appointment would go down in history as the first time when a Chief Minister rejected the panel of all names for Chief Secretary submitted by the Home ministry, and appointed someone from within the state without seeking any approvals.
Withthe tenure of Sanjay Srivastava coming to an end the the government of Indiasent a shortlist of three names to the State namely D M Sopolia (79 batch), LTochong (79 batch) and G S Patnaik (80 batch). The Chief Minister rejected allthree and appointed B Vijayan already posted here as Principal Secretary(finance) as Chief Secretary.
In his internal note on this subject, Chief MinisterManohar Parrikar said “I have gone through the bio data of all three. Whilethey are competent officers, they will need time to know the state.
Thegovernment therefore wishes to appoint someone who will be able to meet thechallenges of a new government. Hence B Vijayan is appointed as ChiefSecretary”. Publicly however the CM maintained that two of these were retiringin two years and the third was reluctant to come to Goa.
“Officers about toretire may not deliver and a reluctant chief secretary is of no help,"Parrikar had said.
