Odisha IAS officer arrested for allegedly taking Rs 1 lakh bribe – india news

An Indian Administrative Service officer, who was among the toppers in his batch in the civil services examination, was arrested on Monday from his office in Odisha’s Bhubaneswar while accepting a bribe of Rs 1 lakh from a sprinkler irrigation systems supplier, officials of the vigilance department said.

Officials said raids were also being conducted on the residences of Bijay Ketan Upadhyaya, the director of Odisha horticulture department, in Balasore and Bhubaneswar.

“Over the last few weeks, there were reports that the horticulture director was taking bribes from different people. Following this, our officials had kept a tab on his activities,” said a vigilance department official.

Vigilance officials said Upadhyaya and a relationship manager of YES Bank in Bhubaneswar were arrested by the sleuths with the bribe money of Rs 1 lakh.

The bribe of Rs 1 lakh was demanded by the IAS officer from SRM Plastochem Private Ltd, an empanelled supplier under Directorate of Horticulture for supply of sprinklers to eligible farmers in Odisha under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana. The 5-year-long central scheme was started in 2015-16 with an outlay of Rs 50,000 crores to achieve convergence of investments in irrigation at the field level.

As per the procedure, after supply of the sprinkler irrigation systems to eligible farmers, deputy director of horticulture of districts prepares bills after field verification and forwards the same to the director of horticulture for final approval and payment. After approval by the director horticulture payments are released to the account of the supplier.

For approving the payment of Rs 50 lakh to SRM Plastochem, Upadhyaya had demanded Rs 1 lakh bribe from it and directed the company to pay the bribe amount to one Santosh Kumar Pattnaik, the relationship manager of YES Bank. The manager had been receiving bribes from different companies, dealers and suppliers on behalf of Upadhyaya.

Soon after Pattnaik was arrested, the vigilance sleuths arrested Upadhyayay. Simultaneous searches were still being carried out at the residential house, houses of the relatives of the IAS officer and the bank manager at different places in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Balasore by a team of 100-odd officials including chartered accountant, bank officers and Cyber Cell officials.

Upadhyaya is a 2009 batch officer of Odisha cadre and was among the toppers in Civil Services Examination with an All India Rank of 5 in 2008. He was suspended soon after his arrest. “Transparency is an important pillar of this Government and we will not spare anyone indulging in any corrupt practices,” a press note from chief minister’s office said.

In his fifth term as the chief minister, Naveen Patnaik has been laying stress on efficiency in public service while trying to crack down on corrupt officials.

Patnaik had in October this year launched “Mo Sarkar”, a citizen-centric feedback system in which he and his officials would call up random people to seek their opinion on service delivery in hospitals and police stations.

“The officers are getting paid from people’s money and it is their duty to provide better services and behaviour to people. People are the soul of democracy,” he said after launching the programme.

Upadhyaya’s arrest has come at a time when opposition leaders have been alleging that the state government is taking action only against junior government officials but going soft on tainted IAS and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, who are allegedly involved in large-scale corruption in various departments.

The vigilance department has filed 11 cases against nine IAS officers and 227 cases against Odisha Administrative Service (OAS) officers in the last nine years.

Of the cases against the nine IAS officers, the department has filed charge-sheets in six, the investigation is still continuing in four and the final report has been submitted against one IAS officer.