Naveen Patnaik reshuffles Portfolios
Expressbuzz, May 11, 2011
BHUBANESWAR: The agonising wait for the Cabinet reshuffle ended on Tuesday with the induction of five new ministers and elevation of a Minister of State to the Cabinet rank. This was the first expansion of Cabinet after the 2009 Assembly elections.
The five new ministers, all Cabinet rank, are former speaker Maheswar Mohanty, former deputy speaker Lalbihari Himirika, Pradip Maharathi, Usha Devi and Niranjan Pujari.
Anjali Behera, Minister of State for Textiles and Handlooms (independent charge), was promoted to Cabinet rank.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik reshuffled the portfolios after the oath-taking ceremony at the Raj Bhavan. Naveen has kept Home, General Administration, Works and Water Resources with him while Prafulla Chandra Ghadei continues with Finance. Ghadei, who loses the Excise portfolio, has been given Public Enterprises.
Portfolios of three senior ministers __ Raghunath Mohanty, Prasanna Acharya and Bikram Keshari Arukh __ remain unchanged.
Some senior ministers, including A U Singhdeo and Surya Narayan Patro, have been rewarded. While Singhdeo has been allotted Excise in addition to Planning and Coordination, Patro gets Information and Public Relations in addition to Revenue and Disaster Management.
The portfolios of Debi Mishra have been changed. He has been divested of Higher Education, Tourism and Culture and given Forest and Environment.
Another senior minister, Prafulla Samal, has been stripped of his portfolios __ Panchayatiraj, Women and Child Development. He has been given Tourism and Culture, and Cooperation.
While newly inducted minister Pradip Maharathi has been rewarded with Agriculture portfolio, former speaker Maheswar Mohanty gets Panchayatiraj.
New entrant Usha Devi gets Textile and Handloom and Science and Technology. Anjali Behera, who was given a promotion and made Cabinet minister, has been awarded the crucial Women and Child Development portfolio.
While Niranjan Pujari gets Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare, Lalbihari Himirika gets ST & SC Development, Minorities and Backward Classes Development.
Among the Ministers of State (independent charge), the portfolios of Sanjib Sahu, Pratap Jena, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak and Pushpendra Singhdeo remain unchanged. Badrinarayan Patro gets Higher Education, Sports and Youth Services in place of Housing and Urban Development. Sarada Prasad Nayak has been given Housing and Urban Development. Ramesh Chandra Majhi gets Information Technology, Fisheries and Animal Resources Development. Majhi also gets Scheduled Tribe Development (Minister of State) while Pushpendra Singhdeo has been given Minor Irrigation (Water Resources) as MoS.
In the run-up to the reshuffle, Agriculture Minister Damodar Rout, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Development Minister Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha and Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs Praveen Bhanjadeo resigned on the instructions of the Chief Minister. While there was one vacancy from the beginning, Pramilla Mallik had resigned as Women and Child Development Minister in the wake of ‘dal’ scam.
With Tuesday’s exercise, the BJD Government now has 22 ministers, including the Chief Minister. There are 14 Cabinet ministers and seven Ministers of State (independent charge).
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