Odisha puts dead official on PM trip duty, then rescinds

BHUBANESWAR: In a major slip-up, Odisha govt on Friday assigned a deceased officer to manage the crowd at Prime Minister Narendra Modi 's visit to Bhubaneswar on Sept 17. After the goof-up attracted criticism on social media, the state govt corrected the order on Saturday.

The original order included Prabodha Kumar Rout, an Odisha Administrative Service officer who passed away in July 2023, among those tasked with crowd management at Janata Maidan for the launch of Subhadra Yojana , a cash incentive scheme for women, on PM Modi's birthday.

Biju Janata Dal social media cell head Swayam Prakash Mohapatra remarked, "A very strange situation under a strange regime."

The state governmetn replaced Rout's name with Subrat Kumar Jena, a land officer at Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation. Chief secretary Manoj Ahuja confirmed, "The name has been changed."