Senior bureaucrat Phatak may be new BMC chief

MUMBAI: Senior IAS officer and Principal Secretary (Urban Development) Jairaj Phatak is tipped to be the new Mumbai Municipal Commissioner after Johny Joseph moved from the civic headquarters to take over as Maharashtra's Chief Secretary.

Joseph, who was named to the top post on Monday, has handed over the charge of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to Additional Municipal Commissioner Manu Srivastava.

Phatak, however, denied any knowledge about his possible elevation as the commissioner of the country's richest civic body whose budget runs into over Rs 9,500 crore.

"There are no orders yet. I am not aware of any such development," he said on Tuesday.

There are strong indications that Phatak, who is known to be an efficient officer, may be Mumbai's new civic chief, an official in state secretariat said.

The other names doing the round for BMC chief's post are those of Subodh Kumar, Principal Secretary (Finance), GS Gill, Principal Secretary (Transport and State Excise) and Ramanand Tiwari, Additional Chief Secretary (Urban Development).

Subodh Kumar, an IAS officer of 1977 batch, has earlier worked as Additional Municipal Commissioner at BMC.

Phatak belongs to the 1978 batch and Gill is of 1976 batch. Tiwari (1972 batch) is due to retire in nine months.