DRDAs to Merge with Zilla Parishads in Odisha

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Government has decided to merge the District Rural Development Agencies (DRDAs) with Zilla Parishads (ZPs) and abolish the structure of DRDAs in a bid to further strengthen the local governance in the State.

As per the Panchayati Raj & DW Department, all the existing officers and employees holding duty posts in the DRDAs, on regular basis will be the employees of the ZPs
All the existing posts in DRDAs, excluding the posts specifically decided to be abolished, will be deemed to have been created for the ZPs with effect from the date of merger, it added.

The State Government has been laying emphasis to strengthen the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in the Stale and have taken several steps for empowerment and transformation of the PRIs.

The matter relating to merger of DRDAs in Districts with respective Zilla Parishads of Odisha was under active consideration of the State Government for some time. DRDAs of Districts are agencies registered under Societies Act, I860, main function of which is to implement and monitor different development schemes in the District.

PRIs being institutions of self Governance must be empowered enough and be directly involved in implementation, monitoring and supervision of various development schemes as well as execution of different public welfare decisions of the State Government, a resolution issued by the Panchayati Raj & DW Department said.

ZP is the apex tier of Panchayati Raj System at district level and needs to be entrusted with all the functions of DRDAs in order to enable it to plan and implement the schemes for poverty-alleviation, overall economic development and social justice.

As a further step forward to strengthen the Local Governance in Odisha and in pursuance to recommendations of 4th State Finance Commission (SFC) as per the mandate of the 73rd Amendment of Constitution, the State Government have now been pleased to decide to merge the functions and Office of DRDAs with respective Zilla Parishads in districts and abolish the present structure of DRDAs, it added.