Former Delhi chief secretary Rakesh Mehta died by suicide at his Noida residence on Sunday. He was 74.
Mehta had a career spanning more than three decades in the Indian Administrative Service. The event was later dogged by allegations of irregularities and questions over expenditure, including during the tenure of then chief minister Sheila Dikshit . Former Delhi minister Arvinder Singh Lovely, who worked with Mehta during the Sheila Dikshit government, recalled him as an efficient officer who was open to new policies. “He was always open to implementing new policies and ideas. He was Power Secretary in the Delhi government when privatisation took place. He was also instrumental in preparing the plan to phase out Blueline buses and deploy low-floor buses on the city’s roads. Mehta also served as Delhi’s Power Secretary when the government privatised electricity distribution in the Capital. The reform changed the way Delhi’s electricity distribution was managed and became one of the major administrative and economic changes undertaken in the city during that period. Mehta served as MCD commissioner, where he worked on changes to the civic body’s tax and sanitation systems. He also credited Mehta with the privatisation of sanitation services in the MCD.
Police said they recovered a note from his home in Sector 82, where Mehta referred to prolonged illness and said no one was responsible for his death. A 1975-batch IAS officer, he held several senior positions in the Delhi government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), and worked on major reforms in transport, power and civic administration.
He was a very good officer,” Lovely told Hindustan Times. Negi said the system helped reduce corruption and benefited millions of residents. His family arranged his last rites at the Lodhi Road crematorium in Delhi on Monday.
