Most of the Oriya-speaking tracts included in the provinces of Bihar and Odisha and Central Provinces and Berar and in the Presidency of Madras covering an area of 32073 square miles ( 83068 square kilometers) were constituted into a separate province named Odisha on 1.4.1936. Initially this province was divided into six districts. On 1.1.1948, 25 Oriya speaking princely states merged in Odisha. With this merger, the province was divided into 12 districts. Thereafter, the princely State of Mayurbhanj merged in Odisha on 1.1.1949 and taken as a district. Since then, there has been no change in the boundary of Orisssa. Its area is 60119 square mile (155707 square Kilometers). In the year 1949, boundaries of some districts were altered and the district of Kalahandi was formed bringing the number to 13. On 1.10.1992, the district of Koraput was divided into four districts - Koraput, Rayagada, Malkangiri and Nabarangpur; Ganjam was divided into two, thereby increasing the number of districts to 17. Again on 1.4.1993,10 new districts were created by dividing Balasore into two, Bolangir into two, Cuttack into four, Dhenkanal into two, Kalahandi into two, Puri into three and Sambalpur into two. Thus, bring the number of district to 27. Subsequently, three district were created raising the number to 30.
When it was first constituted in 1936, Odisha was a poor and backward province. In those days, the policy of Government was to concern itself mainly with regulatory functions like maintenance of law and order and collection of tax. Development activities of Govt. were not very much pronounced. There was no consistent and continuous programme for economic development. It could not afford to provide reasonable infrastructure for an efficient administration.
The orientation of administration changed significantly after Independence. While importance of regulatory functions like proper maintenance of law and order was not forgotten, greater emphasis was laid on economic development of the State and improvement of the quality of life of the people. The era of economic development and planning ushared in. The administrative machinery in Odisha was suitably organized, re-oriented and strengthened from time to time in order to enable it to discharge this new responsibility. Representative local bodies like Grama Panchayats and Panchayat Samities were established through which peoples’ participation was sought in local development works,. The Zamindary system was abolished in order to prevent concentration of wealth and means of production. Ceiling was imposed on individual land-holdings. Ceiling Surplus lands were taken over and distributed among poor and landless persons especially the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.
Along with these revolutionary changes a host of problems and difficulties came into play in the socio-economic life of people. In order to combat these problems, new laws have been enacted, administrative machinery has been made more mobile and suitably equipped.
For carrying out poverty eradication programmes and other development works of local significance there is an autonomous organization in each district known as DRDA. Its programmes are implemented through the B.D.Os most of whom are drawn from the OAS and sometimes by the local Officers of the concerned departments. There are also autonomous agencies like the Command Area Development Agency (CADA) or Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) or OTLEP or NCLP or ZSSS for specific Programmes.
It is seen that the Administrative Officers, Particularly, the officers of Odisha Administrative Service play the most important role in both regulatory and development functions. It is for this reason that the OAS is the Premier State Service. It is the backbone of the State Administration. The OAS Officers are initially trained for manning the posts of Officers in revenue and general administration which provide the necessary stability and infrastructure for effective functioning of other departments of Government. At the cutting-edge level, it is the officers of the O.A.S. who deal with the day to day problems of the people. Their work has direct impact on the Socio-economic life of the people.
For the fact that revenue and general administration is the central point of field administration, the Board of Revenue and Commissioner play very important roles in the entire administrative structure. The commissioner acts as the co-ordinator among field officers of different departments.