हिंदी
Chandigarh, 30 September – Haryana Chief Secretary, Mrs. Keshni Anand Arora superannuated from the post of Chief Secretary today. Mrs Arora took charge as the 33rd Chief Secretary of Haryana on June 30, 2019.
Haryana IAS Association bid a farewell to Mrs. Arora with a heavy heart at 5 pm today. Additional Chief Secretaries, Principal Secretaries, Directors and other senior administrative officers of various departments were present in the farewell ceremony.
Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, Mr. Rajesh Khullar said that Mrs. Keshni Anand Arora is a very simple person. Elaborating on her further he said that she has outstanding administrative skills and she has played a pivotal role in development of the state government at this post. Furthermore, she worked assiduously during COVID-19 which instilled enthusiasm and energy among the officers.
The newly appointed Haryana Chief Secretary, Mr. Vijai Vardhan while admiring the way of working of Mrs. Arora said that she has always worked in cooperation with the team. He said that her retirement will create a void and the state will be deprived of the services of an excellent officer. He concluded while quoting poetry of Nida Fazli – ‘Har admi mein hote hain, das-bees admi, jisko bhi dekhna ho, kai bar dekho.’
On this occasion, several senior officers also shared their experiences about the simple and gentle nature of Mrs. Arora and her administrative style.
It is noteworthy that Mrs. Keshni Anand Arora, is an IAS Officer of 1983 batch of Haryana Cadre.
Mrs. Keshni Anand Arora was topper of her batch, besides being a topper in M.A. (Political Science) and M. Phil. She is M.B.A from University of Western Sydney, Australia. She was appointed the first lady Deputy Commissioner of Haryana since the formation of the State of Haryana and she served as Deputy Commissioner of Yamunanagar from April 16, 1990 to July 1, 1991.
She played an important role in implementation of adult literacy by voluntary organizations in the district and in handling law and order situation during Mandal Commission.
She has served as Special Secretary, Industries and Home Departments, Director of Information Technology; Director, Food and Supplies; Director, Rural Development; Director, Supplies and Disposals and Institutional Finance and Credit Control etc. as well as Managing Director of many prestigious Corporations viz. Haryana Financial Corporation, Haryana Tourism Corporation and HARTRON. As Managing Director, HARTRON, she conceptualized and finalized the detailed project for Haryana SWAN under NeGP. Haryana was first state to implement SWAN in India under NeGP.
Mrs. Keshni Anand Arora also worked as Principal Secretary to Government of Haryana, Tourism and Housing, Forests and Wild Life Departments, Transport and Civil Aviation Departments. As Principal Secretary Tourism, she introduced online system for reservation of Haryana Tourism rooms and facilities with online payment gateway, which was replicated by other States/Central Government Organizations.
She also worked as Deputy Director General, UIDAI, Regional Office, Chandigarh with Government of India, wherein she has been instrumental in implementing Aadhaar and Aadhaar applications in the States of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh (U.T.), Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, especially pilots of MGNREGA, Aadhaar at birth and linkage of Aadhaar with LPG. She was instrumental in speeding up Aadhaar enrolments and Aadhaar seeding in beneficiaries databases in Northern region. She had contributed significantly in implementing Aadhaar based DBT in MGNREGA, various scholarships and social welfare pensions and other DBT schemes. The State could save crores of rupees due to Aadhar based de-duplication of beneficiaries.
Mrs. Keshni Anand Arora also worked as Additional Chief Secretary to Government Haryana, School Education Department, Chairperson, Board of School Education, Haryana, Bhiwani and Haryana State Electronics Development Corporation (HARTRON). She was directly associated in preparing the online Teachers Transfer Policy for school teachers. This was implemented as first of its kind initiative in the Country and many States/Central Organizations replicated this initiative.
She also worked as Additional Chief Secretary to Govt. Haryana, Electronics and I.T. Department. She streamlined the implementation of e-District project Haryana, which was ranked as No.1 by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India alongwith a few other states.
As Additional Chief Secretary-cum-Financial Commissioner to Govt. Haryana, Revenue and Disaster Management Department, Mrs. Keshni Anand Arora conceptualized and implemented many innovative e-Governance projects like First-in-First out in e-Registration, mandatory e-Stamping, online PAN verification, NOC under section 7-A of the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975 for deed registration and cloud based Web-HALRIS in the State. The implementation of these e-Governance initiatives and close monitoring helped the State in collection of Rs. 5679.45 crore as registration fee and stamp duty in the year 2018-19, which is Rs. 1414.27 crore higher than 2017-18 (more than 33 per cent) and highest in the history of Haryana. The component based Web-HALRIS has been awarded BW Businessworld Digital India Award-2019 on June 28, 2019 at New Delhi. She has been credited with other important projects viz. Modern Revenue Records Rooms (MRRR) in all districts and at State headquarters, large scale mapping of entire Haryana covering all areas (rural, urban, controlled areas and abadi-deh) using drone imaging, rovers and CORS Network as a first State of India and Government Land Portal and Assets Management Cell at State headquarters as well as at districts for computerized inventory of Government lands and properties were established.
