The Odisha Vigilance apprehended a Junior Engineer (JE) from Jagatsinghpur district’s General Electrical Division for soliciting a bribe to draft an estimate for installing streetlights at a Gram Panchayat. The accused JE, Soma Das, demanded Rs 15,000, equivalent to 1% of the total estimate of Rs 15 lakh, from the complainant despite delays in processing the estimate.
Acting on the complaint, the Vigilance team conducted a sting operation on June 19, catching Das red-handed in her office while accepting the bribe. The authorities recovered the entire bribe amount from Das and subsequently conducted searches at her residence in Cuttack and office in Jagatsinghpur. Das has been arrested and is scheduled for a court appearance on Saturday.
In a separate incident, the Vigilance department uncovered assets worth crores during raids on properties associated with Satyanarayan Sethy, an Assistant Executive Engineer in Koraput district. The seized assets include two flats, two farmhouses, 49 plots, gold, silver, cash, deposits, and a vehicle, among others.
