The controversies arisen out of Puri district Collector Arvind Agarwal have died down swiftly with his transfer from the district.
Collector Agarwal is to demit Puri for Cuttack following a reshuffle in IAS cadre of the State. A massive outcry over a person since the 2015 Nabakalebar fest until the missing of the Ratna Bhandar keys came to a grinding halt with the development.
Agarwal will be remembered in Puri as right from joining in August 2014 till August 2018, he was one to counter troubles and draw controversies. Never before in the history of Puri did such controversies arise in the life of a Collector. In the second term, he came across confrontations and faced rebukes and heard uproars over his ouster.
In 2014, Agarwal repeated his second term after a term in 2011. For his prowess to deal top affairs, he was resent to Puri to deal with an uphill task of Nabakalebar of the lords. But the Yatra ultimately got to be no cakewalk with allegations of misappropriation of funds in infrastructure buildings becoming a tall hurdle for him.
The Nabakalebar fest had drawn near about Rs 2,000 crore for investment in infrastructure like road, electricity, water, sanitation, drainage, hospital, rest shed and security of the pilgrims. Money flowed like flood in the city, but at the end of the day, denizens didn’t smell bit benefit.
There was an outcry of for CBI inquiry from across the political spectrum. It was opined that had so much of money been utilised honestly, the land of lord Jagannath could have watched a first Smart City in India.
In 2016 Niladri Bije (return ceremony to temple) of lords, he was one to draw massive headlines across the country for being a soft victim of unruly servitors near the lions Gate. People in the country on televisions watched incident of irate servitors trolling and rebuking a Collector with slang languages.
In 2017, a confrontation of the Collector with Puri Bar Association resulted into shutdown of courts and Government offices for a month. A month-long stir of Puri lawyers spread to the State with courts of all districts observing ‘Bandh’ opposing Agarwal. Even the High Court Bar Association observed cease-work in demand of transfer of the Puri Collector, which left no impact on him, perhaps being on the good book of top mandarins of the State.
In February this year, during the visit of President Ram Nath Kovind to the Puri temple, Agarwal invited another trouble over mistreatment to the President by certain servitors. That incident caused a hue and cry in India. However, later, a clarification of the Rastrapati Bhaban said no such incident to the President had happened in the Jagannath Temple.
last but not the least, the missing of Ratna Bhandar keys and his stance in the most sensitive issue of the State in which thousands of crores of rupees are attached had stirred another controversy.