Bhubaneswar: Odisha Government has adopted an integrated transfer policy has been established to streamline human resource management within the state’s engineering cadres. Chief Minister Shri Mohan Charan Majhi has been harping on a structured policy and Minister Works, Shri Prithiviraj Harichandan is also favoring such an effort.
Taking the cue the administrative drive spearheaded by Shri Sanjay Kumar Singh, Principal Secretary of the Works Department, represents a systemic overhaul designed to institutionalize meritocracy and transparency across the engineering cadres of Odisha.
Recognizing that public works administration is highly susceptible to arbitrary personnel shifts, Principal Secretary Shri Singh has focused on replacing discretionary actions with a codified, rule-based framework. His approach systematically reduces personal patronage by introducing a structured, committee-driven recommendation process that establishes structural accountability.
Under Shri Singh’s administrative direction, the human resource machinery has been split into a two-tiered oversight structure to eliminate single-point decision-making.
Senior leadership ranks, spanning from Assistant Executive Engineers up to Chief Engineers, are now governed by a high-level Engineering Establishment Committee which Principal Secretary Shri Singh chairs alongside the Engineers-in-Chief of Roads, Rural Development, and National Highways.
Concurrently, the lower cadre consisting of Assistant and Junior Engineers is managed by an office-level panel led by the Engineer-in-Chief for Roads and supported by technical wing Chief Engineers. This collaborative evaluation ensures that postings are vetted collectively rather than determined through individual discretion.
To further insulate the department from localized vested interests and corruption, Department of Works has instituted rigid spatial and temporal guardrails that act as self-enforcing administrative limits.
The policy enforces a standard three-year tenure restriction at any single station and places an absolute six-year cumulative ceiling within any individual revenue district.
Crucially, to prevent conflicts of interest in project execution and contract management, Superintending Engineers and Executive Engineers are legally barred from serving in their home districts, while Assistant and Junior Engineers are restricted from native sub-divisions.
Through these combined measures, the administrative drive aims to clean up public works governance, ensuring that engineering deployments are predictable, structured, and entirely focused on public utility rather than political or personal convenience.