Six government officials under vigilance scanner over Vasundhara scheme scam in Odisha

BHUBANESWAR: Vigilance officers on Monday conducted searches on the properties of six serving and retired government officials linked to the alleged scam in the state government's Vasundhara scheme.

Vasundhara is a scheme to provide homeless families up to a maximum of 10 decimal of land in rural areas under the provisions of the Odisha Government Land Settlement Rules.

The anti-corruption agency's sleuths conducted searches at 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.

Sources said Panda was Kujanga Tehsildar and Mohanty was sub-collector of Jagatsinghpur when they were allegedly involved in the scam.

The Vigilance Cell registered a case in this connection on August 22 under 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," said a senior Vigilance officer.

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