Dikhyaa Mohanty The Odisha government has chosen to appoint district-level personnel as project directors (PD) of the District Urban Development Agency in order to guarantee effective management of the urban local bodies (ULBs). (DUDA). PD, DUDA positions will be filled from the pool of superannuated officers from OAS, OFS, OPS, ORS, District Statistical Officer, District Small Savings Officer, and any other district level officers, in accordance with a decision made by the Housing and Urban Development department.
To satisfy diverse functional needs, the officers would go through orientation, training, and handholding as well as a strong PMU and logistics. In the areas where the positions are open, the State Urban Development Agency (SUDA) will hire PDs. For a year, their service will only be provided under contract. The capacity building money that is available with SUDA would be used to cover the costs associated with the objective. The department made the choice because, in the lack of an efficient supervisory structure at the intermediate level, it has become more and more difficult to manage the ULBs throughout the state.
