Pilot who soared to dizzying heights in UP

Singh’s brother Mudit Verma said that he had “cancerous growth in brain and was undergoing chemotherapy”. “The initial treatment was done at Lucknow and later he was admitted to Max Hospital,Delhi,” Mudit said,adding that for the past several days,Singh was very weak.

Mudit said Singh was a non-IAS officer who joined as a state pilot in the 1980s during V P Singh’s regime. He was later posted as Officer on Special Duty by the then chief minister Veer Bahadur Singh. “He had the distinction of serving in several departments as a non-IAS officer,” Mudit added.

After the formation of the BSP government in May 2007,he was elevated to the post of cabinet secretary. An order was issued by the state government bringing the cabinet secretary on par with the chief secretary. Initially,he was made the head of the secretariat department. Later,he got the status of a cabinet minister. However,a group of UP cadre IAS officers took up the matter with the Department of Personnel and Training. A PIL was also filed in the high court in this matter. Later,Singh had to relinquish the status of cabinet minister and also lost the powers of chief secretary that were conferred on him through an amendment in the transaction of the business rules. However,he continued to wield clout in the state bureaucracy. When BSP MLAs fought with bureaucrats,Singh used to play the role of a mediator. Singh played the role of a crisis-manager during the farmers’ agitation in western UP.

“He was known for his bold decisions,” said a senior IAS officer who had worked with Singh. He took premature retirement in 2012.