JOIN USKrishna has been transferred to the state headquarters here as a director in the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe development department. Balwant Singh, who is currently posted in the Malkangiri district as the project director of the district rural development agency(DRDA), will take over the district collectors’s job.
Soon after Krishna’s release from the Maoists captivity, his possible transfer had become a subject of intense speculations in different circles including local media as a section of the higher-ups in the state administration were reportedly not happy with the manner in which he virtually walked into a trap set up by the Maoists.
He was traveling without security, completely defying the official orders issued by the Central and state home departments that directed the senior officials of the Naxal-hit districts not to move without proper security arrangement.
The state government was reportedly not getting a suitable replacement for the backward district. Hence the delay in his removal, sources in the secretariat said.
In a major bureaucratic reshuffle executed late on Friday night, the state government has also transferred the Collector of Kandhamal, Kishan Kumar and posted him as the new Collector of neighbouring district of Ganjam. R P Patil, currently Collector of Koraput district will be the new Collector of Kandhamal.
Kishan Kumar was sent to Kandhmal soon after the Hindu-Christian communal conflict that occurred in the backward district in the middle of 2008.