Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Vigilance on Tuesday arrested Joint Director of Soil Conservation & Watershed Development, Bhubaneswar, Dayanidhi Bagh for allegedly amassing assets worth several crores disproportionate to his known sources of income.
The amount of properties Bagh had acquired left the the anti-corruption sleuths dazed as they conducted searches at eight locations on Monday.
The raids revealed that he and his family members owned two buildings, one 3-BHK flat at Gothapatana in Bhubaneswar, 312 grams of gold, bank deposits over Rs 58 lakh and a ‘benami’ Brezza Car.
He had also acquired 84 acres of land, comprising 2 farmhouses in Nabarangpur. One farmhouse was spread over 40 acres at Bijraguda with drip irrigation facility and farm equipment and agricultural materials with investment of approximately Rs 1 crore. Another farmhouse spread over 6 acres at Phatakote also had drip irrigation facility and a concrete house. The investment was estimated at Rs 46,12,665.
Further 11 acres of land belonging to him was found on the outskirts of Bhawanipatna town. He also has one shopping complex with five shops near Nabarangpur town.
Bagh was arrested as he could not produce satisfactory documents to prove the source of the accumulated assets, a Vigilance release said.
The raids followed the arrest of four officials of the watershed wing in Rayagada district in May this year for allegedly misappropriating funds to the tune of Rs 20 lakh without digging the farm ponds in different villages of Kashipur block in the district under MGNREGS in 2022-23 and 2023-24 financial years.
Bagh had earlier served as Project Director in the department.
A case has been registered against him and further investigation is underway, it added.
