Bhubaneswar: The state government, Friday, appointed new chairpersons for the 30 District Planning Committees (DPCs) of the state. The government has appointed 17 ministers and 12 MLAs for the district planning body chief’s post. The MLAs will now enjoy Minister of State (MoS) status.
Steel and Mines minister Prafulla Mallik has been appointed chairman of the DPCs of Deogarh and Keonjhar while minister Pratap Jena to head the DPC of Mayurbhanj, Samir Ranjan Dash to head the Jajpur DPC, Ranendra Pratap Swain (Kendrapara), Niranjan Pujari (Puri), Jagannath Saraka (Gajapati), Bikram Keshari Arukha (Kandhamal), Sudam Marndi (Sonepur), Padmini Dian (Rayagada) and Raghunandan Das (Nawarangpur).
The other ministers who have been appointed for different DPCs are Tusharkanti Behera (Malkangiri), Naba Kishore Das (Bolangir), Susanta Singh (Sambalpur), Padmanabha Behera (Jharsuguda), Ashok Panda (Angul), Dibya Shankar Mishra (Dhenkanal), and Tukuni Sahu (Kalahandi).
Similarly, the government has given the responsibility of planning of 12 districts to MLAs, among whom some were eyeing for a berth in the new Council of Ministers of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Former minister Ananta Das is the new chairman of Balasore DPC Byomakesh Ray to head the Bhadrak DPC, Prasanta Kumar Muduli—Jagatsinghpur, Pramod Mallick—Cuttack, Prasanta Jagadev—Khurda, Satyanarayan Pradhan—Nayagarh and Srikanta Sahu—Ganjam.
The other legislators, who have given the MoS status post, are Mahidhara Rana (Boudh), Raghu Ram Padal (Koraput), Rajendra Dholakia (Nuapada), Debesh Acharya (Bargarh) and Sarada Prasad Nayak (Sundergarh).
