By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, May 25, 2017 : The Odisha government on Thursday appointed 17 ruling party legislators as the chairpersons of the district planning committees in as many districts.

There has been a row over non-functioning of district planning committees for some time. With chief minister Naveen Patnaik stamping approval of the names of the MLAs to head the district planning committees, the DPCs are expected to become vibrant, observers said.

The 17 MLAs including ministers appointed as the chairpersons of DPCs are Aswini Kumar Patra (Balasore), Niranjan Pujari (Baragarh), Ananta Das (Bhadrak), Surya Narayan Patro (Bolangir), Pratap Jena (Gajapati), Dr Nrusingha Charan Sahu (Kendrapara), Sashi Bhusan Behera (Nayagarh), Ramesh Chandra Majhi (Nuapada), Chandrasarathi Behera (Malkangiri), Sushant Singh (Sambalpur), Badrinarayan Patra (Sonepur), Mahidhar Rana (Boudh), Saroj Kumar Samal (Dhenkanal), Rajendra Sahu (Khurda), Prafulla Kumar Pangi (Koraput), Subrat Tarai (Sundargarh), and Lalbihari Himirika (Rayagada).

The MLAs, not part of the council of ministers, will enjoy the status of Minister of State (MoS) after being appointed as chairpersons of the committees.