Office of Raj Kishore Mohapatra, the general manager of the Orissa Power Transport Corporation Limited, . Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, March 10: Vigilance officials today caught the general manager of Orissa Power Transport Corporation Limited, Raj Kishore Mohapatra, red handed while taking a bribe.

According to vigilance officials, Mohapatra was caught while accepting Rs 1.30 lakh in his office from a private electrical equipment supplier for approving his projects. Mohapatra, who was due to retire in the next three months, was forwarded to the court following arrest. The vigilance officials also raided his office and house in Unit-IX.

The supplier, Soumya Bhusan Mohanty, the managing director of S.B. Associates Private Limited, approached the vigilance officials after Mohapatra demanded Rs 3 lakh from him for approving four drawing sheets for the project.

The general manager had already approved three of Mohanty’s drawing sheets for the project but had held back approval for the last one. Mohanty was in a bind because he could not start his project without all four drawing sheets being approved.

Mohapatra had demanded Rs 3 lakh to approve the last drawing sheet, but Mohanty finally managed to convince him to bring it down to Rs 1.30 lakh. This happened on March 7. Mohanty then approached the vigilance department for help.

“We then laid a trap to catch Mohapatra. Today, while he was accepting the money, we arrested him and seized the chemical stained money from his drawer in his office,” said vigilance deputy superintendent Trinath Patel.

He said the accused had admitted to receiving the money from Mohanty to approve the project.

This is the third in a series of graft cases in the last six months.

On November 29 last year, Tarini Chandra Das, a junior clerk of Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) was arrested while taking a bribe of Rs 5,000 from one Biswonath Behera for transferring the ownership of the house he had purchased in Chandrasekharpur.