Bhubaneswar, 5 January: Odisha’s Vigilance Department took swift action on Monday by arresting two engineers from Mayurbhanj district for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 60,000 from a contractor.
The arrested engineers have been identified as Harekrishna Singh, Assistant Executive Engineer (AEE), and Subrat Mohanty, Junior Engineer (JE). Both are employed with the Odisha Lift Irrigation Corporation Limited, located in Udala subdivision of Mayurbhanj district.
According to sources from the Vigilance Department, the duo was caught taking Rs 60,000 as a bribe to release the contractor’s pending bills — Rs 32,000 going to the AEE and Rs 28,000 to the JE.
A vigilance official explained, “The contractor had completed projects worth Rs 25 lakh. However, the accused AEE and JE withheld bills amounting to around Rs 5 lakh and did not release the security deposit. They demanded a bribe of Rs 1.10 lakh at 4.5 percent rate. Harassed by this, the contractor approached the vigilance authorities.”
Acting on the complaint, anti-corruption officials laid a trap on Monday and arrested Harekrishna Singh and Subrat Mohanty while accepting the bribe from the contractor. The entire bribe amount was seized in the presence of witnesses.
Following the trap, simultaneous searches were conducted at Harekrishna Singh’s residence in Khunta, Balasore, his office, as well as Subrat Mohanty’s residential home in Baripada and ancestral house in Rairangpur, along with his office. During the searches, Rs 1.80 lakh was recovered from Singh’s house.
The Vigilance Department’s prompt action highlights continued efforts to curb corruption within government departments.