Ahead of polls, Odisha govt appoints new collectors in 17 districts

According to a government notification, Ashish Thakare, who was serving as the collector of Keonjhar district, has been transferred to Mayurbhanj district in place of Vineet Bhardwaj, who is the new collector of Cuttack. Both Thakare and Bhardwaj had been serving in their current posts for the past six years.

Bijay Kumar Dash replaced Samarth Verma as the new Puri collector, while Verma has been posted as additional chief administrator of Shree Jagannath Temple Administration.

Also in the reshuffle, Chanchal Rana was appointed as Khurda collector in place of K Sudarshan Chakravarthy, who has been posted as director of the Minor Minerals Directorate. Swadha Dev Singh and Vishal Singh have been transferred as new district collectors of Nayagarh and Keonjhar districts respectively, and Abdaal Akthar has been appointed the new collector of Angul.

Many young IAS officers have also been elevated as district collectors for the first time as part of the reshuffle. These include Subhankar Mohapatra (Jajpur), Keerthi Vasan V (Koraput), Suryawanshi Mayur Vikas (Kendrapada), J Sonal (Boudh), Agrawal Akshaya Sunil (Sambalpur), Aditya Goyal (Bargarh), Anya Das (Sonepur), Manoj Satyawan Mahajan (Rayagada), Pawar Sachin Prakash (Malkangiri), and Gaurav Shivaji Isalwar (Balangir).

The Odisha government has also affected changes at the revenue divisional commissioner (RDC) level, with Ranjan Kumar Das posted as RDC, central division, in Cuttack, along with additional charge of RDC, southern division, in Berhampur. Srikanta Prusty has been posted as RDC, northern division, in Sambalpur.

Several senior officers, who were serving as RDCs or collectors, have been transferred to the state secretariat and directorates. Temjenwapang Ao was appointment as secretary of the Public Enterprises Department, and Nikhil Pavan Kalyan was posted as director of Rural Development Department. Monisha Banerjee was made director, Social Welfare Department, while Amrit Ruturaj was appointed the new Labour Commissioner.

Senior IAS officers who got new postings include Siddharth Shankar Swain, commissioner, Cuttack Municipal Corporation; and Chakravarthi Singh Rathore, Lingaraj Panda and Ananya Das, who have been posted as joint secretaries in the departments of Panchayati Raj, Cooperation and Handlooms respectively.