Odisha Reshuffles IAS Officers; Key Changes in Home, Forest, Revenue and Other Departments

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Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has transferred several IAS officers in a fresh round of administrative reshuffling, aiming to optimise departmental functioning across sectors.

The General Administration & Public Grievance (GA&PG) Department released an official notification on 10 April listing the new appointments.

Focus on Mid-Level Bureaucratic Restructuring

The reshuffle includes the reassignment of 17 IAS officers to the rank of Joint Secretary across various departments. Notably, IAS Aradhana Das, who previously served as Special Secretary in the Home Department, has now been promoted to Joint Secretary in the same department.

Other officers who have been appointed Joint Secretaries include:

IAS Dharam Hansdah – Forest, Environment & Climate Change
IAS Rina Mohapatra – Fisheries & Animal Resources
IAS Lily Kumari Kullu – Revenue & Disaster Management
IAS Narahari Sethy – Water Resources
IAS Madhumita Rath – Handloom, Textiles & Handicrafts (with additional charge as MD, Utkalika)
IAS Debasis Singh – Housing & Urban Development
IAS Pratap Chandra Hota – Parliamentary Affairs
IAS Nibedita Mishra – Energy
IAS Rega Geetarani Patnaik – Rural Development
IAS Archana Das Pattanaik – Excise
IAS Anjana Panda – Food Supplies & Consumer Welfare
IAS Nivedita Prusty – Home Department
IAS Swayam Prava Mohanty – Women & Child Development
IAS Sudam Charan Mandal – Food Supplies & Consumer Welfare
IAS Girish Chandra Singh – School & Mass Education

Joint Secretary Status for Directors and Equivalent Officers

Alongside departmental reshuffling, the state government has also accorded Joint Secretary rank to several officers already holding director-level and equivalent responsibilities. These include:

Niyati Pattnaik – Director, Social Security & Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities
Dr Maheswar Swain – Director, Panchayati Raj
Srikanta Tarai – President, Board of Secondary Education, Cuttack
Birendra Korkora – Director, Secondary Education, Bhubaneswar
Laxman Kumar Mallick – Director, Scheduled Caste Welfare
Upama Kalo – Additional Commissioner, Settlement and Consolidation, Sambalpur-II
Pradeep Kumar Nayak – Additional Commissioner, Additional Revisional Court, Bhubaneswar
Premjit Nayak – Director, AYUSH, Odisha
Jugaleswari Dash – Director, OBC, Bhubaneswar

District-Level Continuity

There has been no change in the roles of the following district collectors, who will continue in their current positions:

Kabindra Kumar Sahoo – Deogarh
Madhusudan Dash – Nuapada
Subrat Kumar Panda – Boudh

Administrative Implication

This reshuffle is part of the Odisha government’s ongoing efforts to reorganise its mid-level bureaucracy to improve coordination, departmental execution, and governance.

By redistributing roles and providing official recognition through the Joint Secretary status, the move is expected to create better alignment between leadership roles and departmental objectives.