A new zonal office of the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), Odisha, was inaugurated by school and mass education minister Rabi Narayan Nanda at Jeypore on Sunday.
The office aims to decentralise the board’s manifold activities and to provide doorstep services to teachers and students of Koraput, Nabarangpur, Malkangiri and Rayagada districts, said officials.
“A zonal office of the board at Jeypore was a long standing demand of the people of this area. Earlier, students from this tribal belt used to face problems in travelling to the board’s zonal office at Berhampur for academic work, but now all their problems will be sorted out here,” said Nanda.
According to board officials, the new office will have jurisdiction over 596 schools involving 23,364 students of the south Odisha districts.
“In future, Kalahandi district may be attached to Jeypore zone after due official formalities,” said BSE Odisha secretary Ramakrishna Sahoo.
Locals, including academicians, welcomed the government’s move of opening the office at Jeypore. “The new zonal office will prove very beneficial for students, especially tribals, who had to travel to the Berhampur board office, 300 km from here, for every little work,” said Gopal Patnaik, an academician at Jeypore.
The BSE has other zonal offices at Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Balasore, Baripada and Sambalpur in the state.
