Finance Secretary in Delhi Government Shakti Sinha, who had served as joint secretary to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has sought voluntary retirement from services due to “serious differences” on a number of policy issues in the power and finance sectors.

Sources close to Sinha, a 1979-batch IAS officer of AGMTU cadre who is also holding charge of Power Secretary, said he has decided to quit government services because of the “work environment”.

“He had serious differences on a number of major policy decisions and probably that was the trigger for his decision to apply for the voluntary retirement,” they said.

When asked, 56-year-old Sinha, who had worked with the UN mission in Afghanistan and with the World Bank, said he wanted to work outside the government and termed his tenure in Delhi Government as “challenging”.

“I wanted to work outside the government and that is why I applied for VRS. I will focus my energy on issues such as economic policy and governance,” he told PTI.

The sources said Sinha, who was overlooked for post of Chief Secretary in December last year, wanted the Government to take a “tough approach” in dealing with private power distribution companies and had opposed the subsidy to the new set of power consumers citing possible strain on finances of government.

Immediately after power tariff was hiked by Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission on July 26, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, with an eye on assembly polls in November, had announced subsidy for the consumers whose consumption does not go beyond 400 units. Earlier the Government was giving subsidy to those consumers whose monthly consumption did not go beyond 200 units.

Sinha had also strongly opposed the monorail project proposed for East Delhi, arguing that it would not be an effective transportation system considering the kind of investment it would require.

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