Rayagada R&B SE suspended on misappropriation charges: Lokayukta’s action applauded
Badal Tah,Odishabarta
Rayagada, October 20: Rayagada Superintending Engineer(SE) of R&B department named Smt Jamuna Behera has been suspended last Saturday by state Govt on graft charges. When the whole world was under the grip of Covid-19, Behera, the then Executive Engineer of Rayagada R&B-I, decided to beatify her office building through repairs and renovation such as providing Aluminium Composite Planning(ACP) office cladding to the entrance Gate of the main Building with an amount of around Rs.40 lakhs. Citing foul play in the said work, one Ms Binapani Panda filed a grievance petition before CM’s e-abhijog cell. After the Collector was instructed to institute an inquiry, Sub-Collector, Rayagada Sri Pratap Pradhan was entrusted with the responsibility of investigating the matter. Subsequently Sub-Collector submitted an inquiry report where he mentioned that no wide coverage was given in the news paper and the work was split into eights works amounting a little below Rs.5 lakhs each with a total of Rs.3935421.00.
“Office Memorandum No-10147 dated 31-8-2015 of EIC-cum-Secretary to Govt, Govt of Odisha, Works Deptt. Was seriously violated. Deviously, the department has not floated any E-Tender for around Rs.40 lakhs and mischievously splitted the same work into 8 works/projects to avoid e-tender. Unfortunately and surprisingly she has issued the work order of all the 8 works to a single firm called M/s Maruti Enterprises Ltd Proprietor: Sri Tirupati Prasad Sahu, s/o-Sri Laxmi. Huge corruption in this case and other bids floated avoiding e-tender process”, Sub-Collector’s inquiry report addressed to Collector mentioned.
As usual, no action was taken by the higher authorities in spite of several news published in prominent vernacular dailies. Taking the inaction of the state govt into account, Sri Rabindra Patakhandal, Sri Rashmiranjan Dora and Dr Badal kumar Tah, senior scribes of the district, resolved to take the case forward. On 30th March, Rabindra, Convenor of Odisha Suchana Adhikar Mancha, authorized Rashmi to file the case with Odisha Lokayukta with required affidavit, news clippings, sub-collector’s inquiry reports and other enclosures as prima facie evidence. The case was duly heard by Lokayukta and after a few hearings, Lokayukta found Smt Jamuna Behera guilty for violation of Rule-3 of Odisha Government Servants’ Conduct Rules, 1959 and para 3.5.24 of OPWD code for failure to maintain absolute integrity, failure to discharge duties properly, disobedience of Govt orders & misappropriation of Govt. Money.
“This is just tip of the ice berg. It is perhaps first of its kind in the entire region where a top-notch officer has been suspended by the Govt with instruction by the Lokayukta. The autonomy of this wing to eradicate corruption is well eshtablished as far as this region is concerned. Hats off to Rabindra Patakhandal & his associates,the daring and dashing social activists and journos always with an indomitable zeal and zest to be the pacesetters by doing in stead of just opining .Initiation of such exemplary actions are in fact effective in an otherwise usually usual environ with all such perpetual evils”, said Sri Satya Narayan Gantayat, a noted laureate of the state staying at Kasturi Nagar.
Denizens have thanked Patakhandal, who moved to Lokayukta due to inaction of state government. Though this has tarnished the image of R&B in the district, they are optimistic that there are other instruments of grievance redressal like Lokayukta, which really works. This kind of action will pave the way in clearing roadblocks to development of Rayagada.
