BHUBANESWAR: The state government on Wednesday appointed Manoj Kumar Parida, a retired IAS officer of the Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre as the chief information commissioner (CIC) of the State Information Commission (SIC).
Parida will succeed Jalada Kumar Tripathy, a retired IPS officer and former director general of police (DGP) of Tamil Nadu, who demitted office on October 4, 2024. The post of CIC was vacant since then. A 1986-batch IAS officer, Parida has been serving as the Insurance Ombudsman in Bhubaneswar since July 2022. He was earlier posted as chief secretary of Puducherry and adviser to the administrator of the Union Territory of Chandigarh.
The release further informed about the appointment of three information commissioners. They are retired IAS officer Pabitra Mandal, retired IPS officer Pranabindu Acharya and advocate of the Orissa High Court Kalpana Pattnaik.
The SIC now has two members, Susanta Kumar Mohanty, a former journalist and Jagannath Rath, an advocate of the Orissa High Court. Mohanty was the CIC in-charge as the post was vacant. The SIC now has six members including the CIC and five information commissioners. The Odisha Information Commission, established on March 2, 2006, operates under the Right to Information Act, 2005, and is headquartered in Bhubaneswar.