Finally, the bureaucrat who is going to succeed Irai Anbu as the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary has been revealed. It's 1989-batch IAS officer Shiv Das Meena, who will assume the office as the state's next Chief Secretary. Irai Anbu is a popular bureaucrat and he was appointed as the Chief Secretary after MK Stalin formed the government in the state in 2021. 

Irai Anbu is all set to retire from service on Friday - June 30 and the debate over who will succeed him has made a splash across the state. Senior IAS officers Shiv Das Meena, Vikram Kapoor, and Athulya Mishra were top contenders for the post and the state government has on Thursday made an official announcement that Shiv Das Meena has been appointed as the 49th Chief Secretary. 

In a statement, the government has said, "Thiru Shiv Das Meena, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary to Government, Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department is transferred and posted as Chief Secretary to Government vice Dr V Irai Anbu, IAS, retiring from service on 30.06.2023 after noon." After his retirement, Shiv Das Meena will replace him. 

Shiv Das Meena was born in 1964 in Rajasthan. A civil engineering gradute, he had done his post graduate education in Japan and is fluent in Rajasthani, Tamil, English, Hindi, and Japanese. In 1989, he cleared the civil services examination and joined as an IAS officer in Tamil Nadu cadre. From serving as Sub-Collector in several districts to serving as District Collector, Shiv Das Meena has a sound experience in bureaucracy.

Besides serving in various crucial posts, Shiv Das Meena was one of the secretaries to late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa when she was in power in 2016. Following her demise, Meena went for a central deputation where he served as Chairman of the Central Pollution Control Board in Delhi. However, when MK Stalin-led DMK came to power in 2021, Meena was repatriated back to Tamil Nadu based on the request from the state government. 

It has been reported that Shiv Das Meena is one of the IAS officers who earned a good repute from Chief Minister MK Stalin. With his three-decade experience in bureacracy, Meena is known for his leadership and decision-making skills at crucial junctures.  It was this quality that made the state government to bring him back to Tamil Nadu and since 2021, he had been serving as the Secretary of Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department. 

Shiv Das Meena is the senior-most IAS officer in Tamil Nadu. Notably, Meena had worked closely with MK Stalin earlier when he was serving as the Minister for Local Administration in the cabinet led by his father, the late Chief Minister Karunanidhi. As he has now been appointed as the Chief Secretary in the MK Stalin administration, Shiv Das Meena has been flooded with wishes from across the state.