Shailendra Singh, Former Additional Chief Secretary, Named Chairman of MP RERA

Shailendra Singh, a retired 1988-batch IAS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre and former additional chief secretary, has been appointed Chairman of the state's Real Estate Regulatory Authority, following a selection committee meeting chaired by acting Chief Justice Vivek Rusia this week.

MP RERA regulates the state's real estate sector, registering housing and commercial projects before they can be marketed, enforcing builder disclosure norms on project timelines and finances, and hearing homebuyer complaints against developers who miss possession deadlines or divert project funds. The chairman's post carries a fixed term subject to the statutory retirement age of 65 for the office, which in Singh's case leaves him a tenure of roughly one year and four months given his date of birth on record with the cadre.

Singh's career includes a lengthy central deputation stint as Additional Secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, where he served from 2017 and was granted repeated tenure extensions on account of his experience with industrial policy, including a six-month extension granted in early 2021 that kept him at the department through the pandemic-era industrial recovery push. Earlier in his career, he was Collector of Raigarh and Mandsaur districts, and held charge as Managing Director of the Madhya Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation between 1999 and 2003, and later of the state Milk Board within the Agriculture and Cooperation department.

He has also served as Chief Executive Officer of the MP Rural Road Development Authority, Commissioner of the Commercial Tax department, Managing Director of the State Mining Development Corporation and Principal Secretary of the SC/ST Welfare department during his time in Madhya Pradesh, giving him experience across revenue, welfare, infrastructure and industrial administration before his move to Delhi on central deputation. He holds a law degree in addition to his administrative postings.

Singh takes over from Ajit Prakash Shrivastava, a 1984-batch officer whose tenure as RERA chairman ran its full five-year term amid a protracted dispute with the state government, which had attempted to remove him from office in 2024 before backing down after he approached the Supreme Court and an inquiry against him was subsequently closed. The selection committee, which also included the state chief secretary and the additional chief secretary of the urban development department, cleared Sanjay Gupta for the post of RERA member in the same meeting.

MP RERA has faced a rising volume of homebuyer complaints in recent years as project delays have multiplied across Bhopal, Indore and Gwalior, and the incoming chairman inherits a caseload that has grown faster than the authority's adjudication capacity, a gap the appointment of a full chairman and member bench is meant to help address.

The selection committee's recommendation was cleared following the meeting in Jabalpur, and the appointment takes effect through a formal government order expected in the coming days.