Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Cabinet on Monday approved a proposal to restructure the Odisha Agriculture Services Cadre, aimed at strengthening administrative and technical manpower and improving service delivery to farmers across the state.
Under the restructuring, the sanctioned strength of Additional Director of Agriculture posts will increase from two to six, while Joint Director of Agriculture (L-I) posts will rise from seven to 12. The number of Chief District Agriculture Officer/Joint Director of Agriculture (L-II) posts will go up from 33 to 45, Agriculture District Officer/Deputy Director of Agriculture posts from 102 to 150, and Block Agriculture Officer/Assistant Director of Agriculture posts from 380 to 400.
However, the sanctioned strength of Assistant Agriculture Officer, the base-level post, will be reduced from 789 to 700, keeping the total sanctioned strength of the cadre unchanged.
The government said the restructuring was necessitated by the manifold increase in workload and responsibilities of the Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment Department following the introduction of several initiatives and programmes for farmers.
The revised cadre structure is also intended to provide enhanced promotional avenues and better career progression for officers while ensuring more efficient and quicker delivery of public services at the field level.
The restructuring will come into force from the date of issuance of the notification of the rules framed for the purpose in the Odisha Gazette.
