Six authorities officers below vigilance scanner over Vasundhara scheme rip-off in Odisha

By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: Vigilance officers on Monday carried out searches on the properties of six serving and retired authorities officers linked to the alleged rip-off within the state authorities’s Vasundhara scheme.

Vasundhara is a scheme to supply homeless households as much as a most of 10 decimal of land in rural areas below the provisions of the Odisha Government Land Settlement Rules.

The anti-corruption company’s sleuths carried out searches on the property of Tihidi Tehsildar Ramesh Chandra Panda, sub-collector Mahendra Prasad Mohanty (retired), and former Revenue Inspectors, Santosh Kumar Mallick of Jhimani circle, Jyoti Bhusan Barik of Pandua circle, Subhash Chandra Das of Kujanga circle and Narendra Kumar Lenka (retired) of Paradeepgarh circle.

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Sources stated Panda was Kujanga Tehsildar and Mohanty was sub-collector of Jagatsinghpur after they had been allegedly concerned within the rip-off.

The Vigilance Cell registered a case on this connection on August 22 below Sections 13 (1) (a) and 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Sections 466, 409 and 120B of IPC.

“Simultaneous searches are going on at the property of six officials over allegations of criminal misconduct, misappropriation, forgery and criminal conspiracy by them to illegally settle valuable government land under Vasundhara scheme in favour of ineligible beneficiaries,” stated a senior Vigilance officer.

Nine groups led by an Additional SP rank officer, 11 DSPs and 6 inspectors are conducting the searches and additional investigation is in progress, he added.