Seventeen employees of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department including some officers were suspended in connection with seizure of unaccounted cash running into crores of rupees from different offices of the Corporation across the State. The services of two contractual workers were terminated. The action was taken on the directives of Chief Minister Raman Singh following the state-wide raid conducted by Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) a few days back, an official press release issued here on Wednesday stated.
The orders in this connection were released by Brijesh Chandra Mishra soon after he resumed the office of Managing Director of the Corporation. Seizure of unaccounted cash and assets by ACB has been explained as reason for action in the orders, officials said, adding, the action was also the result of ‘zero tolerance policy’ adopted by Chief Minister Raman Singh on corruption. The key persons suspended include In-charge Manager (Public Distribution System) at Raipur based head office Shivshankar Bhatt, Company Secretary Sandeep Agrawal, Deputy Manager Girish Sharma, Accounts Officer GK Dewangan, Assistant Accounts Officer Sudhir Kumar Bhole, Senior Assistant SK Chandrakar, Senior Assistant Jeetram Yadav, Steno Typist Arvind Dhruv and others.
Technical Assistant Managers RP Pathak and Devendra Singh Kushwaha who were appointed on contractual basis on May 3, 2014 for one year were immediately sacked, officials said. Notably, ACB sleuths had seized cash amounting to more than Rs1.62 crore from the office of Shivshankar Bhatt in Raipur. He has been attached with Durg office. Similarly cash Rs20 lakh were also seized from office chamber of Girish Sharma.