BHUBANESWAR : The state government on Monday named 16 senior IAS officers as secretaries in charge of as many aspirational districts under the Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP) and Aspirational Blocks Programme (ABP) of NITI Aayog.
These senior officers will review the progress of the schemes undertaken in these districts under ADP and ABP, said a notification issued by the Planning and Convergence department.
While director general, Gopabandhu Academy of Administration G Mathivathanan has been given the charge of Balangir district, additional chief secretary, Industries department Hemant Sharma will be in charge of Sambalpur. Sharma was the secretary in-charge for Keonjhar district.
Similarly, Sanjay Kumar Singh, Saswat Mishra, Suresh Kumar Vashisth and Subha Sarma, all in the rank of principal secretary, have been assigned Nayagarh, Dhenkanal, Mayurbhanj and Malkangiri districts respectively.
Six officers in the rank of secretary namely R Santhanagopalan, Girsih S N, Awasthy S, Rajesh Pravakar Patil, Arvind Agarwal and Balwant Singh will be in charge of Kandhamal, Kalahandi, Gajapati, Koraput, Rayagada and Keonjhar districts.
Director of Industries, D Prasanth K Reddy has been given the charge of Nuapada while director, Odia Language, Literature and Culture Bijay Ketan Upadhaya will look after Nabarangpur district. Meanwhile, managing director, OMC, Sudhansu Mohan Samal has been given the charge of Bargarh district.
This is in modification of the last notification made by the department in October 9, 2024. The state government had appointed one senior IAS officer in each of the 30 districts in February to supervise the implementation of all welfare measures. However, officers assigned to aspirational districts will specifically review progress under ADP and ABP. The state has 29 aspirational blocks.