BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha government has decided to merge its Commerce department with Transport to ensure much-needed administrative efficiency. A working committee has been formed to examine the pros and cons of the proposal and submit recommendations.
Odisha has the Commerce and Transport department to look after all modes of transportation matters. The Commerce wing has two heads of department under its administrative control of Directorate of Printing, Stationery and Publication (DPS&P) and Directorate of Ports and Inland Water Transport (DP&IWT). While DPS&P is a quasi-industrial service organisation that delivers different services like printing of government gazette, budget and other publications, DP&IWT looks after port development and inland water transport in the state.
The Transport wing is entrusted with the matters relating to road transport. The department supervises and regulates the working and functioning of State Transport Authority and Directorate of Civil Aviation besides the Odisha State Road Transport Corporation. Though both the departments now have one minister and one principal secretary, the two have separate budgets and function from separate establishments. The decision of merger has been taken following evaluation of various services delivered by the Commerce and Transport department, their budgets, organisation structure, type-wise (Group A/B/C/D) staff in position, field offices under each department.
The proposed merger will ensure complete overhaul of administrative set-up and greater convergence for effective implementation of public welfare schemes. It has also been suggested that the DPS&P will be separated from the department. A Transport department official said there are several redundant efforts put in by both departments to comply with certain mundane activities that need to be ironed out with merger of both the departments. “The merger proposal has received in-principle approval of the government. The working committee will recommend issues related to human resources and separation of printing press within one month,” he said.
The assessment of requirements of DPS&P preceding its separation from the department will be done by the department itself while the assessment, deliberation and suggestion on career succession of existing Group-C and D cadre staff will be made by the working committee. “If the committee gives positive recommendations, both the departments along with the budget demands could be merged from the next financial year,” the official added.