Odisha has deputed ten senior officers from urban local bodies across the state to Ganjam district to manage flood relief, restoration and recovery operations following the challenges triggered by Cyclone Arnab. The officers have been placed at the disposal of the Ganjam District Collector with immediate effect.
The deployment was ordered by the Housing and Urban Development Department through an office directive issued by the Director of Municipal Administration on October 31, 2026. The order centrally relieved all ten officials from their existing duties and instructed them to report directly to the Ganjam Collector.
The deputed personnel include executive officers, assistant commissioners, assistant executive engineers and assistant engineers drawn from municipal bodies in Odisha. The move places urban administration personnel within the district response structure at a time when local authorities are dealing with flood-related relief and restoration requirements.
The officials named in the directive are Abhishek Mishra, Executive Officer of Khandapada NAC; Nihar Ranjan Behera, Executive Officer of Odogaon NAC; Avinash Mohanty, Executive Officer of Dasapalla NAC; Babula Dalai and Debasish Behera, Assistant Commissioners at BMC; Patitapabana Patnaik, Assistant Executive Engineer at Jatani Municipality; Jayanta Kumar Maitra, Assistant Executive Engineer at BMC; Jadabendra Mohapatra, Assistant Engineer at BMC; Chittaranjan Swain, Assistant Engineer at KMC, Kataka; and Satya Narayan Mandal, Assistant Engineer at Khordha Municipality.
Their backgrounds cover municipal administration and engineering functions. The deployment therefore brings both administrative and technical personnel into the district’s emergency response, although the directive cited in the source does not specify individual assignments, affected urban bodies, the number of displaced residents or the scale of damage.
The order also illustrates how the state can temporarily reallocate personnel from urban local bodies to a district-level disaster response. Such transfers can provide additional administrative and engineering capacity for restoration work, but they also mean that the officials’ parent urban bodies will operate without them during the period of deputation. The source does not state how long the arrangement will continue or whether replacement officers will be assigned to the officials’ existing posts.
The immediate next step for the ten officers is to report to the Ganjam District Collector and oversee the relief, restoration and flood management operations specified in the directive. Further details on their assignments, the affected areas and the duration of the deployment were not included in the supplied report.
