An assistant engineer of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) who earned a little over ₹1 lakh a month had allegedly amassed wealth and assets worth nearly ₹6 crore.

The state police’s anti-corruption branch arrested Partha Chongdar on Friday under the Prevention of Corruption Act for amassing wealth disproportionate to his income.

Chongdar, who joined the KMC in 1997, owns six flats in and around the city and a palatial bungalow in Bolpur, said an officer of the anti-corruption branch (ACB).

The engineer was under the scanner for a long time. The KMC even suspended him in 2021, but it was later withdrawn. A KMC official said that the ACB had received complaints about Chongdar around the same time.

An ACB officer said Chongdar’s annual salary now is a little over ₹13 lakh. “The wealth and assets he has accumulated are disproportionate to his income,” he said.

According to sources in the KMC, Chongdar joined the civic body as a sub-assistant engineer and subsequently got promoted to the post of an assistant engineer.

“Going by the number of years he has served, he should have been promoted to the rank of an executive engineer, but the promotion had been kept on hold because of the allegations,” said a KMC official.

“Multiple investments of ₹10, 20 and 25 lakh in different banks were found in his name. We have found multiple bank accounts in the name of his relatives where he is suspected to have parked his ill-gotten money,” said the officer.

The officer added that Chongdar used to invest money in a real estate company named after his wife. “He also made multiple foreign trips between 2017 and 2021. He has 734 grams of gold in a bank locker. When we questioned him about the source of his income, he could not give any satisfactory explanation,” said an ACB officer.

When asked about the arrest of a KMC engineer, mayor Firhad Hakim said that the civic body had already initiated departmental proceedings against him before his arrest.

“The proceedings started in 2021. He was subsequently suspended. The KMC’s own vigilance team initiated steps against him. We could not take further action because many of the assets he built were outside the KMC area,” Hakim said.

“We passed on information available to us to the police,” Hakim added.

Several KMC officials questioned how the authorities could have withdrawn the suspension despite the serious allegations against him.

“It must have happened only at the behest of someone wielding considerable influence,” said an official.

Chongdar was posted in the KMC’s mechanical (asphaltum) department in 2021 when departmental proceedings were initiated against him.

Chongdar was later transferred to the civic body’s planning and development department, where he was posted at the time of his arrest.

The planning and development department has its office at the KMC headquarters.