Mohapatra was a results-oriented bureaucrat: CM, book reveals

“When I started my political career in 1995 as the permanent chairman of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, IP Gautam was the municipal commissioner. He succeeded Mohapatra. I have worked with both… They had similar skills in implementing policies and executing schemes and bringing them to the masses,” Patel said at the launch of the book ‘Gurumantra Musings of a Bureaucrat’ on Mohapatra, who died due to Covid in June 2021. .

CM Patel recalled the contributions that the 1986 batch IAS officer made to the management of Covid when the pandemic was raging in the country. “It is sad for all of us that he has not been able to recover from covid,” he said at the event attended by the late bureaucrat’s wife, Anjali Mohapatra, and GIFT City president Sudhir Mankad.

Listing the various contributions of Mohapatra in his papers in Gujarat and later in Delhithe Chief Minister said that there were few IAS officials willing to change the decisions made.

“Modifying a decision that has already been made is one of the good traits in him,” Patel said, adding that the late IAS official had the “strength” to modify decisions for the greater good.

“Even after he left for Delhi, I had a chance to meet him. Even my life is influenced by his work ethic,” said Patel, recalling Mohapatra’s contributions to the central government’s UDAN scheme as chairman of the Airports Authority of India, and Gujarat’s to the industries, air supply and water and electricity.