Jajpur, Dec. 23: Jajpur district administration suspended seven officials on charges of corruption. The suspended officials include village-level workers Anam Charan Das, Baikuntha Behari Dalei, Prasanna Kumar Nayak, Umesh Kumar Samal, Laxmi Narayan Mahala, Pradipta Sahu and clerk in agriculture department Trilochan Das.

“All the seven officials were found guilty of misappropriation of funds allotted for Indira Awas Yojna (IAY) during their posting as village-level workers in Barachana block in the district,” Jajpur collector Pramod Kumar Mohanty said.

According to reports, the Centre had sanctioned special grants for construction of 4,00,000 houses under IAY for the poor families affected by the 1999 cyclone.

Barachana had received Rs 22.68 crore towards construction of houses for the 11,702 selected beneficiaries of the block and work orders were issued to all of them. But the irregularities in selection and distribution of IAY houses came to the fore after 1,200 genuine beneficiaries were denied the benefits.

Former Barachana legislator Sitakant Mohaptara had raised the misappropriation issue in the Assembly. The Assembly had appointed a standing committee which found severe lapses during its physical verification of the sites.

Based on the report, the vigilance department was asked to probe the case. Accordingly, complaints were also lodged against them at the vigilance police station.

The vigilance, while verifying records on implementation of the programme, physical verification of the sites for houses of the beneficiaries, found severe deficiencies and lapses. “The vigilance department had sought permission from our department to prosecute the tainted officials. We have given clearance to the vigilance department to go ahead with prosecution,” state panchayati raj department director Arabinda Kumar Padhee said.