Cuttack: The state vigilance cell has arrested several officials in 48 cases of graft as it continues its drive against demanding and accepting gratifications, a common practice in various government departments, since January this year.

Of them 42 were in the first three months of the year. All of them were trap-cases in which public servants, including Odisha Administrative Service officers, police officers, engineers, revenue officials and clerks were caught taking bribe. On March 23, five persons were arrested in four trap cases on a single day after being caught red-handed while taking bribe.

On that day, tehsildar Prabhakar Panda and assistant revenue officer Prasanta Kumar Panigrahi of Belanguntha tehsil in Ganjam were arrested for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 15,000 for not initiating any legal action against a person for raising a brick kiln. OAS officer Santosh Kumar Sahoo, posted as the block development officer of Kakatpur, was caught red handed on March 17 while demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 18,000 from a junior engineer of the block for release of security amount of Rs 69,000 towards execution of 13 cement concrete road works.

Swadhin Kumar Sahoo, a junior engineer at Ranapur in Tangi electrical sub-division in Nayagarh was caught red handed on April 6 while demanding and accepting an illegal gratification of Rs 2,000 for charging the electric line of a local resident.

On March 26, Bhagirathi Sahoo, the head clerk of establishment section at Gondia block in Dhenkanal, was caught for demanding and accepting bribe of Rs 2,000 from a retired panchayat executive officer for processing his pension papers.

A data entry operator at the office of chief district medical officer, Jagatsinghpur, was arrested on April 9 after he was caught red handed for demanding and accepting an illegal gratification of Rs 3,000 for issuance of a livelihood disability certificate to a person.

On March 8, Pramod Kumar Patnaik, assistant sub-inspector of police at Balugaon police station in Khurda district, was caught while taking Rs 5,000 as bribe from a person for making station dairy entry relating to a motorcycle accident in order to claim insurance by him.

An executive officer of Ganjam Notified Area Council, Satya Narayan Pratihari, was arrested on March 7 for taking Rs 5,000 as bribe from a junior engineer to release his arrear salary of five months.

A vigilance official said: "The trap cases involving bribery were registered against officials on complaints received from public so as to give redress to the common public at grassroots level."

Around 170 cases involving public servants accepting bribe were registered in 2017.