Aditya Prasad Padhi completed two years as Chief Secretary on Thursday, November 30.
On November 30, 2015, leaving the cozy assignment of ACS to the Chief Minister, the 1983-batch IAS officer had taken over as the head of the State bureaucracy after his predecessor Gokul Chandra Pati superannuated from service.
Padhi has a clean reputation with flair of delving into details of the issues and is extremely sincere, hardworking with a friendly approach, for which he has earned respect of the other administrators. No wonder, he has endeared himself to Naveen Patnaik, who likes and trusts him.
Inheriting an administrative system that required leadership, Padhi provided it to a great appreciable extent. The State was facing resource crunch due to a slowdown of funds flow from the Centre. The State Government had a difficult situation due to VAT exemption to the Indian Oil. He took up the issue with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and the issue was sorted out with ease.
Padhi is precise and to-the-point in his approach. Gone are the days when the Chief Minister used to admonish a Chief Secretary for their long hours of meetings. Padhi started visiting the departments and took detailed reviews of their activities, which unnerved many nonperformers. The Secretaries now know that they will be hauled up by the CS for their poor performances.
Similarly, while State PSUs were never in the agenda of a Chief Secretary, Padhi made it a point to move to the offices of the PSUs, where crores of rupees have been invested by the Government. Now, the PSU bosses are on their toes and the performances in the undertakings are showing better results.
Besides, all the 30 Secretaries, Principal Secretaries and ACSs are visiting districts and filing their field reports, which the Chief Secretary, is reviewing. Thanks to the support of the CMO, Padhi is able to steer clear the administration.
Interestingly, rumour mill has been hyperactive that Padhi would opt for Union Government soon as he has long years to retire from service in 2020. But he is going strong in the State administration.