Senior IAS officer Syed Ali Murtaza Rizvi, serving as Revenue Secretary (Commercial Taxes and Excise) in Telangana, has taken voluntary retirement (VRS) with eight years of service still remaining. His sudden exit has triggered intense speculation in bureaucratic and political circles.
While Rizvi has not officially revealed the reason for his decision, government sources point to growing tensions between him and Excise Minister Jupally Krishna Rao over the high-security hologram tender — a key project used to track and authenticate liquor bottles in the state.
A letter written by Minister Jupally Krishna Rao to Chief Secretary K. Rama Krishna Rao has surfaced, accusing Rizvi of deliberately stalling the ₹100 crore hologram tender and allowing an old vendor, whose contract expired in June 2019, to continue supplying holograms without competition for more than six years.
The minister urged the government to reject Rizvi’s VRS and take disciplinary and legal action against him.
Rizvi, a 2001-batch IAS officer known for his administrative acumen, had been transferred four times in two years since the Congress government came to power, reportedly under mounting ministerial pressure.
Amid the controversy, the state government accepted his VRS, effective October 31, 2025.
On Wednesday, the government issued orders placing M. Raghunandan Rao (IAS 2002), Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, in Full Additional Charge (FAC) of Secretary to Government, Revenue (Commercial Taxes & Excise), succeeding Rizvi.
