Tamil Nadu: Amidst Reports Of Discrepancies in Chennai’s Covid-19 Toll, Health Secretary Beela Rajesh Shunted Out

Tamil Nadu Health Secretary Beela Rajesh, whose daily pressers providing update on the state response coronavirus pandemic catapulted her in to limelight, has been shunted out.

Senior IAS officer J Radhakrishan, currently the Secretary of Revenue Administration, has been assigned the additional charge as Health Secretary.

Radhakrishnan, a seasoned bureaucrat, was earlier appointed the Special Nodal Officer for Greater Chennai Corporation and entrusted with responsibility of coordinating the containment strategy in Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram and Tiruvalur were the infection is rapidly spreading.

According to sources with the government, the recent media reports on discrepancies in Chennai’s Covid-19 toll may have played a role in government effecting the transfer of Beela Rajesh. Reports have emerged suggesting over 250 Covid-19 fatalities have gone unreported in Chennai.

Tamil Nadu has the second-highest number of Covid-19 cases after Maharashtra with nearly 38,716 people infected by the virus till date. The Covid-19 death toll in the state stands at 349 of which Chennai accounts for nearly 276 fatalities.

Beela , who completed her MBBS from Madras Medical College, joined the ranks of IAS in 1996. A Bihar cadre office who was subsequently transferred to Jharkhand, she was made Tamil Nadu’s health secretary in 2019.

Beela hails from a politically well-connected and powerful family in Tamil Nadu. Her father LN Venkatesan was a former DGP of Tamil Nadu and her mother Rani Venkatesan is a Congress leader and a close confidante of former FM P.Chidambaram. She contested and won in the 2006 Assembly election from Sathankulam constituency in Thoothukudi district

Beela Rajesh has now been posted as Secretary for Commercial Taxes and Registration department