23-05-2025
Four officials arrested for embezzling Rs 20 lakh in Rayagada's watershed project funds
BERHAMPUR/JEYPORE: Four officials of the watershed wing in Rayagada district were apprehended on Thursday by the Vigilance for allegedly misappropriating funds to the tune of Rs 20 lakh.
The arrested officials were identified as assistant project director-cum-project implementing agency (APD-cum-PIA), Rajendra Nath Naik, two soil conservation overseers Jogendra Khosla and Deepak Kumar Sahoo, and soil conservation extension worker, Srikumar Nayak at the office of the project director, watershed in Rayagada.
Sources said, the government had sanctioned around Rs 3 core under the MGNREGS for excavating farm ponds in Kashipur block of the district in 2022-23 and 2023-24 financial years. However, the vigilance got complaints that the officials misappropriated the funds without digging the farm ponds and embezzled the money.
A Vigilance team visited different locations in Kashipur block and found around 23 farm ponds were not constructed and even beneficiaries were not aware that over their farm, ponds had been dug. The accused siphoned off the money to accounts of labourers having job cards and withdrew the same later.
The team filed a case against the accused officials on Wednesday for misappropriating government funds of Rs 20 lakh and arrested them on Thursday. They were later produced in a special vigilance court of Jeypore on Thursday evening.
Koraput Vigilance division SP RK Panda said, 'We have not found 23 farm ponds during investigation as they spent government funds by showing records and further verification is underway in the case to ascertain any other such misappropriation by these accused persons.'
