Odisha Church mourns death of first tribal IAS officer

By Purushottam Nayak

Rourkella: The Church in Odisha has mourned the death of the first tribal to become an office of the Indian Administrative Service from the eastern Indian state.

Livnus Kindo died of heart attack at 10:30 pm on April 18 in his residence at Rajgangpur in Odisha’s Sundargarh district. He was 76.

Bishop Kishor Kumar Kujur of Rourkella will lead the funeral services at 3 pm on April 20 in Malidhi, his village under Rajgangpur parish.

He belonged to the 1973 IAS batch and was in the Odisha cadre. He served as the state’s chief secretary, revenue commissioner, and the election commissioner for Odisha.

Kindo, a Catholic, was born May 13, 1945, in Michael Kindo village of Sundargarh district.

Kindo’s death is a “great loss to the Catholic community in Odisha,” says Father Bernard Lakra, Rajgangpur parish priest and a close friend of the deceased.

“He was active in the local parish as well as in the Odisha Church. He was ready to give his valuable and much needed suggestion for the good administration of,” Father Lakra told Matters India.

Kindo did MA(Economics) from Sambalpur University in 1970 and M Phil (Economic Development) from Glasgow University (UK) in 1989.

He was a member of Chhotanagpur indigenous community. His initial focus was to provide social services to the tribal families His son Deepak Kindo, who is now the managing director and CEO of Sambandh (relationship), a company Kindo founded.

The company has provided small loans to some 200,000 women since it started providing microfinance services in 2006.

Through his diary farm and the microfinance project he reached out to the poor. “His contribution to the poor and needy Adivasis of Sundargarh will keep his memory alive,” the parish said.

Besides the son, Kindo is survived by his wife Mary Margaret, a principal of the Little Flower English Medium School in Rajgangpur he founded, and Pushpa, daughter who is now a medical doctor.