Senior bureaucrat Asit Kumar Tripathy on Monday took charge as the chief secretary of Odisha while his predecessor Aditya Prasad Padhi assumed office as the State Election Commissioner.
Padhi handed over charge to Tripathy in presence of senior officials and media persons at the Lok Seva Bhawan.
Prior to his appointment as chief secretary, Tripathy was the Development Commissioner and also in-charge of the Home department and Chief Administrator of the KBK region.
Tripathy, a 1986 batch IAS officer, become the 43rd chief secretary of the state after Padhi took voluntary retirement from service before joining as the State Election Commissioner.
After taking over charge, Tripathy said that he would ensure that government files were speedily cleared.
The chief secretary said he believed in consuming less time to study a file and expected officers to do the same.
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"5T will get top most priority", said Tripathy.
Earlier, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had asked the officials to adopt 5T (Teamwork, Technology, Transparency, Transformation and Time Limit) to bring about transformational change in the state.
Meanwhile, taking over charge from Naba Kumar Nayak, Padhi said that he will make efforts not to hamper the dignity of the State Election Commissioner's post.