Guwahati Development Department with Ashok Singhal: CMO

The Assam Chief Minister's Office (CMO) on Friday said that Guwahati Development Department (GDD) is vested on Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Ashok Singhal.

This comes a day after a major reshuffle in the Assam Cabinet on Thursday.

The Urban Development Department and the GDD are currently placed together under the Housing and Urban Affairs Department, it added.

Previously, the GDD was a separate department under the state government. Besides the Housing and Urban Affairs department, Singhal also holds the Irrigation department.

A month after completion of one year in office, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had carried out expansion and reshuffle of his Cabinet on Thursday.

The new ministers inducted in the cabinet yesterday are BJP MLAs Nandita Garlosa and Jayanta Malla Baruah. They were assigned cabinet portfolios by re-calibrating the portfolio allotments among the existing ministers.

With the two new ministers, the cabinet strength rose to 16.

This is the first cabinet reshuffle of the Himanta Biswa Sarma-led cabinet. Sarma was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Assam on May 10 last year.

The newly inducted ministers Jayanta Malla Baruah has been allotted the port folio of Minister of Public health Engineering, Skill, Employment & Entrepreneurship and Tourism department while Nandita Garlosa has been allotted the port folio as the Minister of Power, Cooperation Department, Mines and Minerals and Indigenous & Tribal Faith and Culture Department.

As per the 91st amendment of the Constitution in 2003, the total number of ministers, including the chief minister, in a state should not exceed 15 per cent of the total number of members of the Legislative Assembly.

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