Jairaj Phatak is new Mumbai civic chief

MUMBAI: Senior IAS officer and Principal Secretary in Urban Development department Jairaj Phatak was on Friday appointed the new commissioner of the country's richest municipal corporation.

He succeeds Johny Joseph who took over as Maharashtra's chief Secretary on April 30. Phatak, an IAS officer of 1978 batch, is known as an efficient officer and his tenure as school education department secretary was lauded for the efforts he undertook to improve the lot of students.

Phatak has beaten other probables to the top civic post, namely 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, had earlier worked as Additional Municipal Commissioner at BMC. Gill is of 1976 batch, while Tiwari (1972 batch) is due to retire in nine months.

Phatak takes over the reigns of BMC, which has an annual budget of over Rs9,500 crore, at a time when the civic body is preparing to tackle challenges posed by monsoon.