Calcutta, March 12: Bengal chief secretary Samar Ghosh will get a six-month extension if the Prime Minister’s Office approves a proposal Mamata Banerjee sent last week.

Sources in the state secretariat said Gautam Sanyal, secretary to the chief minister, personally took the letter to Delhi as Mamata was keen on retaining till September the 1977-batch officer, scheduled to retire on March 31.

“The proposal is lying with the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and will soon be forwarded to the PMO for final approval,” a source said.

Sources said Mamata had been trying to persuade Ghosh, who played a key role in drafting the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) agreement, to accept the extension.

Ghosh was initially not keen and had told officers close to him that he had already drawn up his retirement plans. “He changed his mind in the past few days. It seems, the chief minister has managed to persuade him,” a senior officer said.

Once the state gets the PMO’s approval, which is a formality, Ghosh will become the second chief secretary to get an extension. The tenure of B.R. Gupta was extended by six months when the Left Front government came to power in 1977.

According to government norms, among IAS officers, only the chief secretary and the finance secretary can be given post-retirement extension by the state government after seeking the approval of the DoPT and the PMO. The extension can be for six months at one go.

Some officers said that though Ghosh had “differences of opinion” with Mamata on several occasions, he did not have a choice but to accept the extension. “The basics of the service rules say that an IAS officer cannot defy an order issued by the PMO. So whether he will continue or not is really not his discretion,” an officer said.