In order to bring the Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP) and Aspirational Blocks Programme (ABP) of NITI Aayog to fruition, the Odisha
government has named 16 senior IAS officers as secretaries in charge of 16 aspirational districts of the state. According to the notification issued by the Planning and Convergence department, these senior officers are tasked with reviewing the progress of the schemes undertaken in these districts under ADP and ABP.
While G Mathivathanan (IAS:1994:OR), Director General of Gopabandhu Academy of Administration, has been given the charge of Balangir district, Additional Chief Secretary of the Industries department Hemant Sharma (IAS:1995:OR) has been given charge of Sambalpur. Sharma was the secretary in-charge for Keonjhar district.
Similarly, Sanjay Kumar Singh (IAS:1997:OR), Saswat Mishra (IAS:1996:OR), Suresh Kumar Vashisth (IAS:1998:OR) and Shubha Sarma (IAS:1999:OR), all in the rank of Principal Secretary, have been assigned Nayagarh, Dhenkanal, Mayurbhanj and Malkangiri districts respectively.
Six secretary-rank officers, namely R Santhanagopalan (IAS:2001:OR), Girish S N (IAS:2002:OR), Awasthy S (IAS:2003:OR), Rajesh Pravakar Patil (IAS:2005:OR), Aravind Agrawal (IAS:2007:OR) and Balwant Singh (IAS:2007:OR) will be in charge of Kandhamal, Kalahandi, Gajapati, Koraput, Rayagada and Keonjhar districts.
Besides, Director of Industries D Prasanth K Reddy (IAS:2009:OR) has been given the charge of Nuapada while Director, Odia Language, Literature and Culture Bijay Ketan Upadhyay (IAS:2009:OR) will look after Nabarangpur district. Meanwhile, Managing Director, OMC, Sudhansu Mohan Samal (IAS:2010:OR) been given the charge of Bargarh district.
This is the modification of earlier notification issued 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. Now, these officers will specifically review progress under ADP and ABP. The state has 29 aspirational blocks.
