Dikhyaa Mohanty 
Niranjan Pujari, the finance minister, stated before the Odisha Legislature that there are up to 2,26,559 open government positions in the state. Pujari revealed the details in the Assembly in response to a query from Kusum Tete, a Sundargarh-based BJP legislator.
According to the Annual Establishment Review, which the Finance Minister cited, there are presently 3,98,577 people employed by the State government’s various ministries. Nonetheless, he insisted that the Annual Establishment Review does not take contractual employees or staff who receive extensions upon reaching retirement into account.
The relevant departments have access to this information in full, he noted. Yet, according to Pujari, the Finance department now has 78 contractual staff and 85 employees who received extensions upon reaching superannuation. He said that the School and Mass Education Department had the most open positions (55,830), followed by the Health and Family Welfare Department (36,045), the Home Department (26,798), and the Higher Education Department (11,522).
