With an aim to provide water to several villages in Rajnagar block, the State Government provided crores of rupees to the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWSS) department in past years for digging tube-wells.
But thanks to the unholy nexus of some unscrupulous officials of the department and contractors, a high profile scam has taken place in the digging of the tube wells in which crores of rupees have been duped, showing over 100 tube wells to have been dug in pen and paper only.
The multi-crore tube-well scam came to the fore following one Aruna Kumar Rout of Bhagabanpur under Ostiapur gram panchayat of Rajnagar, who is the member of Panchayat Samiti of zone no- 31, filed petition under RTI Act before the Executive Engineer of the RWSS, Kendrapada on February 2.
As per the report provided by the authority, on March 2 last, it was found that as many as 1,554 tube wells were dug under Rajnagar block since 2009. But surprisingly, it was found that 150 tube wells did not exist on the spot, but they were shown only in pen and paper. Notably, each tube well has been shown to have been dug at over Rs1 lakh.
Recently, the locals brought the matter before the notice of the District Collector Durga Prasad Behera, while he was going to attend a hearing camp at Rajnagar block last week. later, Behera, accompanied by SP Sarthak Sarangi, the Rajnagar BDO and tehsildar along with Junior Engineer of RWSS went for a field visit at Ostiapur, Mahisasura and Kanpur for any enquiry. They found that the number of tube wells shown in the record was forged.
The District Collector said while Kanpur village under Satabhaya gram panchayat had been gobbled up by the Bay of Bengal for over a decade, the record shows that two tube wells have been dug in the village, which is astonishing.
"I have directed the chief Engineer of the RWSS to submit a so-cause report in this regard and take action against the Junior Engineer of the department. Even, the Executive Engineer of RWSS has been directed to submit a detailed inquiry report. Departmental proceeding along with legal action would be initiated against those found guilty," said Behera.
Meanwhile, Zilla Parisad president Sridhar Swain, who belongs to the ruling BJD party, praised the step of the District Collector. He demanded before the District Collector to take step for suspending those officials, who were found guilty in the inquiry report.
However, Rajnagar MlA Alekha Jena in an interview to a private TV channel has given clean cheat to the officials. The MlA has stated that no corruption has occurred in the RWSS department pertaining to the digging of the tube wells.
On the other hand, Congress leader Ganeswar Behera stated that the statement of the Rajnagar MlA was unfortunate.
When the District Collector and the Zilla Parisad president have admitted that a scam has taken place in the digging of the tube wells, it is surprising to find the local MlA giving a clean chit to the RWSS department, he said.