With focus on the tribal dominated KBK (Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput) region in the state, Odisha govenrment has appointed senior bureaucrat Ashok Kumar Tripathy as the chief administrator of KBK administration.
In addition to his new assigment, Tripathy, an 1981 batch IAS officer, will continue in his his post as member Board of Revenue, a notification issued by General Administration Department said yesterday.
With slowing down of flow of funds from the Centre for the backward and poverty stricken areas of the state, the Chief Minister has taken steps to depute senior IAS officers at the helm of the KBK administration, official sources said.
Earlier four senior officers, including Chief Minister's Additional Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi, was assigned to oversee work in communally sensitive Kandhamal while Development Commissioner Upendra Nath Behara had been given given additional change to look after the development of Maoist hit Malkangiri district.
ACS Finance R Balakrishnan will oversee developmental work in Nabarangpur district, which is another backward one.
Tripathy, now the chief administrator of KBK administration, was earlier given the responsibility of Maoist-affected Nuapada.
Meanwhile, 1983 batch IAS Taradatt, who was chief of KBK administration, will now devote his full time as Director General of Gopabandhu Academy of Administration, the notification said.
