Mumbai, June 30 : A senior IAS officer of the 1988 batch, Rajesh Kumar Meena, on Monday took over as the 46th Chief Secretary (CS) of Maharashtra from the outgoing Chief Secretary Sujata Saunik, who retired on Monday.

Several department secretaries greeted him on the occasion. Rajesh Kumar Meena will get a tenure of months as he retires in August.

Before becoming the Chief Secretary, Rajesh Kumar Meena was the additional chief secretary of the revenue department, and he had also held the posts of additional chief secretary of the cooperation department, additional chief secretary of rural development and industry, energy and labour departments. He also worked as the principal secretary of water supply and cleanliness, commissioner of the Integrated Child Development Scheme and tribal development.

He had also worked as the municipal commissioner of the Solapur civic body and Osmanabad district collector.

Meena thanked Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar and the entire cabinet for giving him the responsibility of the chief secretary of Maharashtra. 'I will work with all department secretaries as a team to take Maharashtra ahead in every sector, scale up progress and improve efficiency. This will be done through good governance and modern technologies for achieving the mission of Viksit Maharashtra,' he said.

The outgoing Chief Secretary Sujata Saunik said, 'For Karmayogi, there is no retirement. I was doing one type of work, and in the future I will do something else. I am fully satisfied with my role as the CS. Work never ends as it goes on, and therefore, we do the handing over and taking over of charge. My successor will take forward the work which I was doing as the CS.'

To a question on what will be a new responsibility from the state government that she will get, Sujata Saunik said, 'I am indebted to the government. Let us think of the future later.'

Rajesh Kumar Meena's appointment comes at a time when the MahaYuti government is in the process of implementing the Supreme Court order on holding the civic and local body elections in the state. The State Election Commission has already asked the civic bodies to complete the work relating to the chalking out of wards.

Meena has taken over when the government is pursuing its ambitious target of Maharashtra becoming a one trillion dollar economy by 2027 and Viksit Maharashtra by 2047. Further, as a chief secretary, Rajesh Kumar Meena will have to coordinate various departments and district collectors to implement the Rs 86,300 crore Shaktipeeth Mahamarg, especially when farmers and opposition parties are stepping up their protest against it.

Even though the state government has scrapped two government resolutions on the introduction of Hindi as a third language along with Marathi and English from grade one, the new chief secretary will have to keep an eye on the functioning of the high level committee headed by former Planning Commission member Dr Narendra Jadhav on the implementation of trilingual formula in the state.

/IANS