New Delhi (Gurpreet Singh): Former Delhi Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta died by suicide at his apartment in Noida on September 6, police officials confirmed on Tuesday. The 74-year-old retired 1975-batch Indian Administrative Service officer was found hanging from a ceiling fan inside his residence in Sector 82. Law enforcement recovered a suicide note from the flat in which Mehta cited severe mental and physical health issues as the reason for ending his life. His last rites were performed at the Lodhi Road crematorium in New Delhi on Monday.
Mehta served as the top bureaucrat in the Delhi government for more than three years under former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, assuming office in 2007 before retiring in November 2010. During his tenure as chief secretary, he oversaw administrative coordination and civic preparations for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Mehta was widely credited with helping execute critical infrastructure overhauls across the capital, including power sector distribution reforms, property tax structural rationalisation, the phase-out of private Blueline buses, and the induction of low-floor public buses.
Throughout a public service career spanning more than three decades, Mehta held multiple senior portfolios across the Delhi administration, including serving as commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Former colleagues and senior administrators remembered him as an efficient and reform-minded bureaucrat whose administrative leadership left an enduring mark on Delhi’s contemporary urban infrastructure.
