Vasundhara Land Scam: Vigilance Blitz Against Odisha Bureaucrat, 4 Former RIs

Bhubaneswar: The Vigilance sleuths on Monday arrested ex-Tehsildar of Kujang, former sub-collector of Jagatsinghpur and four former revenue inspectors (RIs) in connection with the illegal settlement of valuable government land in favour of ineligible beneficiaries under the Vasundhara scheme.

The accused have been identified as OAS officer and former tehsildar of Kujang Ramesh Chandra Panda, retired OAS officer and former sub-collector of Jagatsinghpur Mahendra Prasad Mohanty, former Revenue Inspector (Jhimani, RI Circle) Santosh Kumar Mallick, former Revenue Inspector (Paradeep) Narendra Kumar Lenka, former Revenue Inspector (Kujang) Subash Chandra Das and former Revenue Inspector (Pandua Circle) Jyoti Bhusan Barik.

Panda is currently posted as Tehsildar of Tihidi, a Vigilance official said.

Earlier in the day, the Vigilance teams had conducted simultaneous raids at nine places in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Bhadrak and Jagatsinghpur associated with these six officials.

The accused have been charged with criminal misconduct, misappropriation, forgery and criminal conspiracy.

The nine raiding teams comprised one additional SP, 11 DSPs and 6 inspectors from the Vigilance department.