The Centre on Sunday attached six Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers to the Delhi government to assist in Covid-19 management amid a worrying spike of infections, which have crossed 38,000 so far in the city.

Senior IAS officers S.C.L. Das and S.S. Yadav have been attached to the Delhi government, along with Awanish Kumar and Monica Priyadarshini from Andaman and Nicobar, and Gaurav Singh Rajawat and Vikram Singh Mallik from Arunachal Pradesh.

These attachments come on the order of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Shah also instructed immediate transfer of Kumar, Priyadarshini, Rajawat and Mallik to New Delhi.

Das, a 1992-batch Uttarakhand cadre IAS officer, has been working as a Joint Secretary with the Ministry of Home Affairs since March 2018. Yadav, a 1995-batch AGMUT cadre IAS, was appointed as Joint Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Development in August last year. He was the Administrator of Daman and Diuand Dadra and Nagar Haveli then. Yadav has previously worked with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as his secretary.

In May 2015, Yadav was appointed as the Secretary to Kejriwal from the post of CEO of Delhi Jal Board (DJB).

The Home Minister took the decision soon after a major meeting with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal and Chief Minister Kejriwal in the presence of members of the State Disaster Management Authority, AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria, Commissioners of three Municipal Corporations and senior officers from the Union Home and Health Ministries.

It was also decided in the meeting that the Centre will give five more senior officers to the Delhi government to fight the corona infection vigorously.

Shah held the meeting at his North Block office around 11 a.m. to take stock of the novel coronavirus situation in Delhi where 1,271 people have so far died due to the virus.

(Source: ET Government)