Union finance minister Arun Jaitley has to find a successor to Revenue Secretary Dr Hashmukh Adhia who is retiring in two months. Quoting personal reasons, Adhia says he does not want his term extended.


But the preparation for the 2019 Union Budget is underway and it would serve well to extend Adhia's term by three months.


Adhia is an architect of GST and demonetisation and naturally, the government is reluctant to let him go and so he will be asked to prepare the budget and relieved of his duties by April 2019.


Considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi (he served as Principal Secretary to Modi from 2003-06, when Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat) Adhia is a career bureaucrat and does not want favours from the government.  A yoga expert, he does meditation regularly and wants to now spend time in religious discourses.


Interestingly, it has been Adhia who has followed up many of the Enforcement Directorate cases against former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad Yadav and his daughter Misa. The PM has received daily briefings about the CBI and ED raids on former finance minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti, thanks to Adhia.


A final decision will be taken in October when Jaitley takes up the issue with the PM.