Jammu: Bharat Bhushan Vyas, an IAS officer of the 1986 batch, was on Friday appointed the new Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir.
The decision was taken by the cabinet, presided by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. He replaces incumbent BR Sharma, who has been appointed an advisor to the government.
Vyas was presently the Principal Secretary to the chief minister. He has also served as principal secretary to two earlier chief ministers.
The cabinet also shifted over a dozen senior IAS and state administrative cadre officers.
Vyas is expected to help the J&K government normalise the situation in the state, which has seen an increase in clashes between forces and students in south Kashmir and other parts of the Valley.
As Firstpost reported earlier , steps are been taken to contain the rising student unrest including restricting access to popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.