Bengaluru: The State Government has appointed 1986-batch IAS Officer Vandita Sharma as the new Chief Secretary. She will replace P. Ravi Kumar who will retire from his post on May 31.

Vandita Sharma’s name was picked by the Basavaraj Bommai Government from a pool of nine probables serving as Additional Chief Secretaries: I.S.N. Prasad (Finance) (who is Vandita’s husband), Rajneesh Goel (Home), E.V. Ramana Reddy (Industries), Rakesh Singh (Water Resources), Shalini Rajneesh (Planning), G. Kumar Naik (Power), Gaurav Gupta (IDD) and Ajay Seth (Central deputation).

Vandita Sharma, 58, will be the fourth woman to serve as the Chief Secretary of Karnataka after Teresa Bhattacharya, Malati Das and Ratna Prabha.

A meeting of the State Cabinet on May 12 had authorised the Chief Minister to take a call on picking the Chief Secretary from the list of nine officers shortlisted by a Cabinet Committee.

She was on Central deputation for a few years and served as an Additional Secretary and Financial Adviser in the Department of Space before returning to Karnataka in 2017.