Bribery cuffs on public servants

Cuttack: The practice of demanding and accepting bribe is rife in various government departments in the state, which has seen more than 500 people from various departments investigated for corruption since January last year.

Of them, nearly 32 per cent were involved in bribery cases, official sources said.

At least 175 trap cases involving public servants demanding and accepting bribe had been registered since January last year.

"Most of the trap cases involving bribery were registered against officials on complaints received from public so as to give redress to the common public at the grassroots level," a vigilance official said on condition of anonymity.

He, however, conceded that in spite of the government servants being booked, the completion of trial was awfully slow.

According to records, the headmistress of an upper primary school in Bhadrak was caught red-handed on January 4, while accepting bribe of Rs 8,200 from proprietor of a tailoring unit to pass the bill and payment of Rs 26,800 towards the making charges of 134 pairs of school uniform.

A tehsildar of Kapitpada in Mayurbhanj district was arrested on January 11 after being caught red-handed demanding and accepting illegal gratification of Rs 1 lakh from a person for allowing him for transporting sand.

On January 16, a junior engineer at the office of the executive engineer (lift irrigation division) in Keonjhar was caught for the same reason. He was taking bribe from a person of Erendei to facilitate installation of bore well in his agricultural land under the Biju Krusak Vikash Yojana.

Another junior engineer of Binika section of Western Electricity Supply Company of Odisha (Wesco) in Sonepur was arrested for demanding and accepting bribe of Rs 8,000 from a person of Gulunda for the purpose of rectification of provisional electricity consumer bill supplied to his agricultural land.

Assistant fisheries officer at Rayagada was arrested on January 3 for accepting bribe of Rs 5,000 from a person of Saurasinghpur for processing the release of subsidy amount in respect of pisciculture tank excavation of his father.

On January 8, a clerk at the tehsildar's office of Buguda in Ganjam district was caught for accepting bribe of Rs 6,000 from a person for processing files relating to application filed by his father for mutation.A revenue inspector in Kujang circle of Jagatsinghpur district was arrested on January 18 for demanding and accepting bribe of Rs 8,000 from a person to submit verification report to the Kujanga tehsildar for issuance of the Record of Right (RoR).

A lineman of Buguda electrical section of the Southern Electricity Supply Company of Odisha (Southco) in Ganjam was caught, demanding and accepting bribe of Rs 10,000 from a person to supply electric connection to his welding workshop situated at Buguda, official records said.

A case was registered against a revenue inspector of Manjuri road circle in Bhadrak for accepting bribe of Rs 1,200 for taking expeditious steps to finalise a land mutation case in March 2008. The RI who had now retired was convicted and sentenced to one-year imprisonment by special judge (vigilance) court on January 20.

Another assistant sub inspector (ASI) of police of Remuna police station in Balasore, against whom a bribe case was registered in May 2009, was convicted by the special judge (vigilance) court and sentenced to one-year imprisonment on January 12. The ASI was chargesheeted for demand and acceptance of bribe to minimise the penal sections in a criminal case, official records said.