Kancheepuram industries department official held for graft

The arrested official was identified as S Arul, project manager/ assistant director (tech).

DVAC action came following a complaint from one A Sunil Kumar of Emerald Street in Chennai, who stated that he had applied for clearance certificate from the project manager for his newly purchased CNC router machine.

For issuing the certificate, Arul had allegedly demanded Rs 33,000 as a bribe on Friday. Unwilling to pay the bribe, Sunil Kumar approached the DVAC with a complaint against the official.

On the basis of his complaint, a trap was set by the sleuths on Monday. Arul was caught red-handed while he was accepting the bribe of Rs 33,000 from complainant at Natesan Road in Ambattur.

The bribe amount was recovered from the official by the DVAC team. He would be produced in the court for remand after his house was searched, DVAC sources said.

The DVAC sleuths have cracked down on complaints against the officials of District Industries Centre in the recent past, including an assistant engineer in Dharmapuri for taking bribe of Rs 25,000 to provide loan to a beneficiary under the NEEDS scheme.