Town panchayat directorate staff booked for graft

DVAC has listed GV Srinivasan, executive engineer at the office of the Directorate of Town Panchayat; R T Saravanan, draughtsman; S Viajay Bharathi, overseer of Sathankulam town panchayat; and Sekar alias Dhanasekar alias Murugadoss, sweeper, Kuralagam.

The case is registered under CrPC 102, which allows the police to seize any property which may be alleged or suspected to have been stolen, or which may be found under suspicious circumstances.

DVAC noted that the surprise raid was conducted in the office on November 14, 2018, during which Rs 1.95 lakh seized from there. The search was carried out on credible information that huge level of corruption existed in the office by way of collecting illegal gratification from the executive officers of the town panchayats in various districts for awarding technical sanction towards the fund sanctioned through NABARD Scheme in 2018-19 based on a Government Order.

DVAC further noted that officials were also indulging in collecting bribe for issuing technical sanction after verifying for the schedule of rates and estimated values quoted by the executive officers of the Town Panchayats. Further, the officials demanded the district panchayat officials to insist bribe on percentage basis for issuing administrative sanction for the fund allotted of funds through NABARD scheme in 2018-19 for improvement and strengthening of rural roads in town panchayats.

During the check, the sleuths had recovered Rs 50,000 from the personal diary of overseer Vijaya Bharathi from Santhankulam. When asked, she said she did not know anything about the money found insideher diary.

The search team had also seized Rs 79,000 kept in a plastic cover inside the bureau which was used by sweeper Sekar. Along with thecash, the officials also found transfer request letter froma junior engineer to theDirector of TOWN PANCHAYAT.

The DVAC team had also seized Rs. 16,800 from a table found inside the room of executive engineer Srinivasan, who later said that the money was kept by draughtman Saravanan. The raid team also recovered Rs 48,630 from an unoccupied table.