BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha government on Wednesday named chairpersons of the district planning committees (DPCs) across all 30 districts.
Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi approved the appointment of four ministers and 26 BJP MLAs as heads of the DPCs.
Revenue and Disaster Management minister Suresh Pujari has been appointed as the DPC chairman for Deogarh district, while Law minister Prithiviraj Harichandan will head the panel in Gajapati. School and Mass Education minister Nityananda Gond and Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare minister Krushna Chandra Patra have been assigned Rayagada and Sambalpur districts respectively.
The remaining DPCs will be chaired by ruling party MLAs. Prominent among them are Ashok Mohanty (Angul), Laxman Bag (Balangir), Padmalochan Panda (Balasore), Ashwini Kumar Sarangi (Bargarh), Purna Chandra Sethy (Ganjam), Amarendra Das (Jagatsinghpur), Tankadhar Tripathy (Jharsuguda), Fakir Mohan Naik (Keonjhar), Jay Dholkia (Nuapada) and Prasanta Kumar Jagadev (Khurda).
The move comes in the wake of Opposition criticism of the government for failing to operationalise grassroots planning mechanisms.
During the budget session, Opposition members repeatedly flagged the non-constitution of DPCs and questioned the delay in decentralised planning processes.