4 officials arrested for bungling Rs 20 lakh

Koraput: Vigilance sleuths on Thursday arrested four officials in Rayagada district for allegedly misappropriating over Rs 20 lakh under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in Kashipur block.

The arrested officials are Rajendra Nath Naik, assistant project director-cum-project implementing agency (APD-cum-PIA), Jogendra Khosla and Deepak Kumar Sahoo, both soil conservation overseers, and Srikumar Nayak, a soil conservation extension worker. All were associated with the office of the project director (Watershed), Rayagada, according to an official release.

Speaking to the media, superintendent of police (Vigilance) R K Panda said an inquiry was launched following complaints of large-scale corruption in the excavation of farm ponds under MGNREGS. The investigation revealed that the accused fraudulently diverted govt funds by falsely documenting the excavation of 23 farm ponds in villages across Kashipur block.

"These ponds were never actually excavated. However, funds were disbursed and credited into the bank accounts of job card holders under MGNREGS and later withdrawn. These suspicious transactions are under further investigation," said Panda.

He said the addresses of the purported farm ponds were in remote and forested areas, and physical verification confirmed that at least 23 of them did not exist. False bills were prepared to siphon off the funds, he added.

Between 2022 and 2024, around Rs 3 crore was sanctioned for the digging of farm ponds in the region. So far, misappropriation of Rs 20 lakh has been detected, but officials fear the extent of the scam could be much higher. "Our field teams are conducting further verifications, and we suspect the number of ghost ponds and the misused funds may increase," Panda said.