BHUBANESWAR: The state cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Friday approved creation of the Odisha Uniformed Services Staff Selection Commission (OUSSSC) for appointments to police and other uniformed services.
The commission will be responsible for recruitment of officers and personnel for Odisha police and other uniformed services under the Home, Excise, Forest, Environment & Climate Change and Commerce and Transport departments. It would function under the administrative control of the General Administration & Public Grievance (GA&PG) department.
The decision to create an umbrella panel comes in wake of large-scale irregularities in the recruitment processes over the last few years, creating a trust deficit and raising question marks on the fairness of the system.
Chief secretary Manoj Ahuja told mediapersons that the proposed commission will ensure timely, transparent, efficient and merit-based recruitment through a standardised, technology-driven and accountable process.
The cabinet approved the proposal of the GA and PG department for framing of the Odisha Uniformed Services Staff Selection Commission Rules, 2025, to facilitate constitution of the commission and enable its functioning, he said.
Ahuja said the current practice of recruitment to various ranks in the Odisha police and other uniformed services is through conduct of examinations and tests through different departmental boards, which has resulted in abnormal delays and irregularities.
“In order to streamline the recruitment process, the GA&PG department has proposed to constitute a dedicated recruiting agency named OUSSSC,” he said.
The state government was mulling reforms in the recruitment process after the sub-inspector (SI) recruitment test by the Odisha Police Recruitment Board ran into trouble with allegations of leakage, tampering and involvement of organized syndicate. Later, a CBI probe was ordered by CM Majhi to unearth the fraud.
Meanwhile, another proposal of the GA department for transfer of all the lease records of the land allotted to eligible occupants of labour tenements under low-income group hosing scheme by the erstwhile Labour, Employment and Housing department to it for all post-allotment activities was also approved by the cabinet. Currently, all the lease records of these tenements are with the Housing and Urban Development department.
