VP Joy to take over as new Kerala chief secretary

The Pinarayi Vijayan government of Kerala on Wednesday decided to appoint senior bureaucrat V.P. Joy as the new chief secretary of the state.

Mr.Joy is an electronics engineer by profession and passed out of the College of Engineering here in 1985 and became a bureaucrat in 1987. He has served in numerous positions here as well as at the Centre, besides having a term as the Provident Fund Commissioner. In January 2020 he was the Cabinet Secretariat Chairman of National Authority of Chemical Weapons Convention Government of India.

Mr Joy started his career as a scientist/engineer at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center in 1985 and joined IAS in 1987. He is also a writer and poet and his various works have been published several times.

V. P. Joy is married to Sheeja Joy and the couple has two children, Sachin Joy, Sharon Joy.

He will take over from incumbent Chief Secretary Viswas Mehta on March 1 and will hold the top bureaucratic post till June 30, 2023, when he retires. Mehta, meanwhile, has got a new posting as the Chief Information Commissioner.