Hyderabad: In minor admin rejig, I&PR gets new special commissioner

Hyderabad: With elections less than six months away and ahead of the inauguration of the new Secretariat building, the government has resorted to minor changes in administration.

It has appointed the 2014 batch IAS officer K Ashok Reddy as Special Commissioner, Information and Public Relations and Ex. Officio Special Chief Secretary to the government on Friday. The incumbent Special Secretary to I&PR Arvind Kumar was relieved from the post immediately.

Ashok is the OSD (Officer on Special Duty) to State Finance and Medical and Health minister T Harish Rao. He was selected as Group-1 officer in the state services in the 1990s, and had held different positions in the State Cooperation department.

After the TRS came to power in the Telangana state in 2014, Minister Harish Rao had taken Reddy in his core team of officials to run his office at Secretariat level. He has been entrusted with the responsibility of disposing of key files pertaining to the policy decisions taken by the minister and coordinate with CMO (Chief Minister Office) for speedy disposal of the administrative matters.

Ashok Reddy was among five Group-I officers from Telangana who were conferred IAS by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) New Delhi.