Odisha Govt asks senior IAS officers for dev work in 4 distts

The Odisha government today engaged four senior IAS officers to accelerate development activities in four Left Wing Extremism-affected districts.
The districts identified as focus areas for the state government were Malkangiri, Kandhamal, Nuapada and Nabarangpur.
While member Board of Revenue Ashok Tripathy has been put in charge of Nuapada district, Development Commissioner Upendranath Behera would look after Malkangiri district.
Additional Chief Secretary in-charge of Finance Department R Balakrishna would monitor development activities in the tribal dominated and Maoist-hit Nabarangpur district, while Chief Minister's Additional Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi was given the responsibilities of communally sensitive Kandhamal district, a release issued by the Chief Minister's office said.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik would review the progress of development works in these districts every month, it said.
The four senior bureaucrats would ensure agriculture, irrigation, health, education, rural electrification, drinking water, rural connectivity and other welfare programmes in the districts.
Poverty, lack of infrastructure, communication hurdle, low literacy rate, high infant and mother mortality rate have been major challenges in the four focus districts, the release added.