Bhubaneswar: To usher in development in Kotia, the govt on Thursday formed a committee that will help define the structure of an umbrella agency which will work to ensure progress in the region while also propagating Odia language, literature, tradition, culture and festivals in the disputed gram panchayat that both Odisha and Andhra Pradesh claim to be their own.The 16-member committee, to be headed by revenue and disaster management minister Suresh Pujari, will define the special agency’s structure, hierarchical and funding pattern, and convergence of schemes. It will also conduct a comparative analysis of schemes offered by Andhra and recommend measures for Kotia’s development to chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi, an order issued by the revenue and disaster management department stated.Additional chief secretary (revenue), Deoranjan Kumar Singh, will be the member convenor of the inter-departmental committee, which will include secretaries of home, law, rural and ST/SC development among others.A govt officer said the committee is the outcome of a meeting chaired by the chief minister on Kotia on April 22 when the govt decided to form a single agency headed by an officer belonging to the Odisha Administrative Service or Odisha Revenue Service with an independent office for the development of Kotia. The dispute over 21 of 28 gram panchayats in Kotia dates back to the 1960s. The Supreme Court on March 30, 2006, had disposed of a suit filed by Odisha in 1968, stating that Parliament alone can determine the territorial jurisdictions of states and ordered status quo till then. The panchayats have a population of around 5,000.