Senior IAS Officer Shikhar Agarwal Removed From Key Posts Following Reports Of Family’s Purchase Of 40 Villas & Cottages

· Free Press Journal

Jaipur: The Rajasthan government has placed senior IAS officer Shikhar Agarwal under Awaiting Posting Orders (APO), removing him from several key positions, late Wednesday night. The move comes amid media reports highlighting the purchase of 40 villas and cottages by Agarwal, his IPS officer wife Prashakha Mathur, and other family members from a single company, followed by leasing the properties back to the same company.

Agarwal was serving as the Additional Chief Secretary of the Industries and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) departments. He also held the positions of chairman of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) Special Area Development Authority, Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO), and the Bureau of Investment Promotion (BIP), Rajasthan.

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Government Cites Administrative Reasons For Action

The Department of Personnel issued an order late Wednesday night, relieving him of all these responsibilities and placing him under APO.

While the government has officially cited "administrative reasons" for the action, it is believed that the APO order is the fallout of recent media reports detailing the family's property transactions.

Family Reportedly Purchased 40 Properties

According to the reports, Agarwal, his wife, Prashakha Mathur, their two sons, and his in-laws purchased 40 properties from Goyal Fashions Private Limited. These included 20 villas in Ajabgarh, Alwar district, and 20 cottages in Bujhda, Udaipur.

The family reportedly spent a total of Rs 6.16 crore on the properties. Soon after the purchases, all 40 properties were leased back to the same company from which they had been acquired.

Lease Arrangements Detail Annual Rental Income

The reported lease arrangements provide for an annual rent of Rs 4 lakh for each of the 20 cottages in Bujhda and Rs 5 lakh for each of the 20 villas in Ajabgarh.

Under these arrangements, the family's total annual rental income from the properties is estimated at Rs 1.80 crore.

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Company Reportedly Received Investment Incentives

It was also reported that Goyal Fashions Private Limited had been granted a customised package under the Rajasthan Investment Promotion Scheme (RIPS) with provisions for exemptions from various taxes and subsidies covering employee salaries, among other incentives, and the property transactions took place around the same period when the company was granted the customised incentive package and were subsequently leased back to it.

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Agarwal's Previous Administrative Roles In Rajasthan

A 1993-batch IAS officer, Shikhar Agarwal has long been regarded as one of the most influential bureaucrats in Rajasthan, as he held several important administrative positions, including the post of Additional Chief Secretary to Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma when Sharma took over the charge, though he was suddenly removed from the post and was appointed Additional Chief Secretary of the Industries with other key positions in the state's industrial development and investment promotion machinery around a year ago.

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