Orissa High Court orders Vig probe into Kalyan Mandap project irregularity

JAGATSINGHPUR: The Orissa High Court has directed the Vigilance department to probe alleged misappropriation of funds allocated by the State government for construction of a Kalyan Mandap in Jadatira panchayat under Tirtol block. After repeated appeals to officials concerned yielded no result, the villagers had filed a writ petition in the High Court seeking an impartial probe into the matter on January 28 this year. 

The State government had sanctioned Rs 10 lakh in two installments in March and June 2018 for construction of the Kalyan Mandap. Jadatira sarpanch Kabita Behera chose to construct the facility in her native village, Bandhabati which has less population as compared to Jadatira and Arada. While Jadatira and Arada have nine wards each, Bandhabati has only two. 

The plan for the project was prepared by the assistant executive engineer and junior engineer of Tirtol and sent to Behera. Even as the estimate for the project as per the plan was `10 lakh, Behera revised it to `20 lakh and issued the work order accordingly. A patch of gochar (grazing) land near Hanuman temple in Bandhabati village was selected for the facility and the tehsildar and BDO of Tirtol urged to demarcate the site. After demarcation, construction began without de-reserving it as is mandatory in case a project is executed on gochar land.

The work order for the project was issued in favour of executive officer of the panchayat, Akshaya Kumar Mohanty in May last year. While `3.54 lakh was withdrawn from the funds allocated for the project, the work was reportedly not done as per specifications. Sources said the bill generated for the work was allegedly inflated. This apart, since the site of the project is located near two government primary schools, the villagers said it would hamper classes at the institutions. 

Alleging such irregularities in the project, residents of the panchayat urged the SP (Vigilance), Cuttack, Tirtol BDO and the Panchayat Raj and Drinking Water departments to conduct a probe but in vain. Last month, 21 villagers led by one Debasis Sharma filed a writ petition with the HC against Commissioner-cum-Secretary of Home department, Director of Vigilance and other officials seeking a thorough investigation to bring the guilty to book. 

During hearing of the case in HC, Justice Biswajit Mohanty directed Vigilance SP, Cuttack to conduct a probe into the allegations and submit a report within six months of the receipt of the order.