Bhubaneswar, March 3: The state government today transferred Koraput district collector V. Jayakumar following the threat by the Odisha Ministerial Officers' Association to launch a statewide agitation over the suspension of 11 administrative employees.

The incident is the fallout of a permission given by the administration to Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan's helicopter to land in the district during panchayat elections on February 13. After one junior assistant, who had moved the papers related to the landing for approval was suspended, his colleagues went on strike saying that the officer (the additional district magistrate), who gave the permission to the aircraft to land, should have been made accountable and not the junior clerk. The district collector then suspended 10 others.

Today, the association's delegation called on senior officials and explained the circumstances and also threatened to launch a statewide agitation if the government did not take proper action. Shortly after the meeting, the government announced the transfer of Jayakumar from Koraput to the general administration department in the secretariat. IAS officer Anupam Shah - currently working in Balangir as the district rural development agency's project director - was posted in his place.

Following the collector's transfer, the administrative employees have deferred their pen down strike for next 48 hours. The association leaders said that though their first demand for the collector's transfer had been met, their other demand for revocation of the suspension of 11 employees was yet to be fulfilled.

Functioning of government offices in the tribal-dominated Koraput had been paralysed for the past 11 days because of the pen down strike by the employees.

Pradhan had gone to Boriguma to attend a campaign meeting during the panchayat polls. Jayakumar and his employees had been at loggerheads after junior assistant Krushna Chandra Pradhan was suspended on February 14 for preparing the file for according permission for the minister's helicopter to land.

As the stand-off affected the projects in the district, the Opposition expressed concern over the issue. While Congress MLA of the district Tara Prasad Bahinipati had sought the state government's intervention, BJP members stalled the Assembly proceedings over the issue yesterday, forcing the government to act.