Former Gujarat-cadre IAS officer Dr Guruprasad Mohapatra was a “silent and result-oriented” bureaucrat, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said in Ahmedabad Friday. “When I started my political career in 1995 as the standing chairman of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, IP Gautam was the municipal commissioner. He was succeeded by Mohapatra. I have worked with both… They had similar abilities to implement policies and deliver schemes and take it to the masses,” Patel said at the launch of the book 'Gurumantra Musings of a Bureaucrat' on Mohapatra, who died due to Covid in June 2021. CM Patel remembered the contributions the 1986-batch IAS officer made for the Covid management when the pandemic was at its peak in the country. “It is sad for all of us that he could not recover from Covid,” he said at the event where the late bureaucrat's wife Anjali Mohapatra and GIFT City chairman Sudhir Mankad were present. Enlisting the various contributions of Mohapatra in his roles in Gujarat and later in Delhi, the Chief Minister said there were few IAS officers who showed readiness to alter decisions taken. "Amending a decision that has already been taken is one of the good traits in him,” Patel said, adding that the late IAS officer had the “strength” to make alterations in decisions for the greater good. “Even after he went to Delhi, I have had the opportunity to meet him. Even my life is influenced by his work ethics,” Patel said, as he recalled Mohapatra's contributions to the Central government’s UDAN scheme as the chairman of Airports Authority of India, and those in Gujarat for the industries, water supply and electricity sectors.
