BHUBANESWAR: Odisha government has finally bid adieu to the district rural development agencies (DRDA) by merging them with respective Zilla Parishads (ZPs) and abolishing the present structure of the organisations with immediate effect.
The merger is aimed at strengthening the panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) and enabling the ZPs to plan and implement the schemes for poverty-alleviation, overall economic development and social justice.
The DRDAs in districts were registered under Societies Act,1860, main function of which was to implement and monitor different developmental schemes while the ZPs are the apex tier of the PRI system at district-level.
The decision to merge the agencies with ZPs was taken as PRIs being institutions of self governance needed to be empowered enough and directly involved in implementation, monitoring and supervision of various development schemes as well as execution of different public welfare decisions of the State government.
Principal Secretary (Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water) Ashok KK Meena said, "After a thorough consultation, the government has formally merged both the institutions and issued a resolution describing the modalities about the functioning of the ZPs post merger."
As per the resolution issued on Friday, all the existing officers and employees holding posts in the DRDAs on regular basis will be the employees of the ZPs and all the existing posts in DRDAs, excluding the posts specifically decided to be abolished, will be deemed to have been created for the ZPs with effect from the date of merger.
The sanctioned strength of 30 ZPs will be 1,115, including 150 programme managers, 30 each executive officers, additional executive officer (administration), additional executive officer (technical) and additional executive officer (finance).
Altogether 150 posts of assistant PDs will be abolished and 150 posts of programme managers created. The incumbents holding the post of regular programme officer in DRDAs will be absorbed in the posts of programme manager in ZPs.
Principal Secretary of PR & DW department will be the appellate authority in respect of the programme managers and senior programme managers of the ZPs.