Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): More than 50 government files and panchayat records were recovered during raids on the residence and shop of a private engineer in Sheopur.
On the direction of the district collector, a team led by tehsildar accompanied by local police conducted a raid on the house of the engineer Dwarika Prasad Dwivedi in Kalyanpuram colony, officials said on Monday. The team during searches recovered a number of government records and documents concerning civil works at panchayats.
In a video clip that went viral on social media, the Sheopur district collector Sanjay Kumar is seen confirming the recovery of government files from the two locations owned by Dwivedi.
The collector said that he had received information that Dwivedi was in possession of government records of more than 50 gram panchayats. Interestingly, in his own capacity, the private engineer was preparing the civic work proposals of the panchayats and getting all measurements and work done. And for all this work he was duly remunerated, even though he was not engaged by any of the panchayats or the government offices.
When the matter came to the notice of the collector, teams were formed to conduct simultaneous raids on the engineer’s house and his shop located in village Baroda. Tehsildar Sanjay Jain and police officials conducted searches at the house of Dwivedi and seized a large number of government records. A team led by SDM Manoj Gadwal conducted a raid on the shop ‘Vidhyarthi Sewa Kendra’ in village Baroda. While the engineer owned the shop, it was operated by Pritam Bairwa.
The shop had 18 different cabins storing files of one gram panchayat each. The team also found a computer and printer at the shop. At the time of the raid, computer operators were found working at the shop. All documents were seized and the shop was sealed after the raid.
The recovered government documents included muster roll, bill voucher, job cards list, bank passbooks. The collector said that the officials would conduct an assessment of the recovered records and look into the role of government engineers if any.
‘Tip of iceberg’
Meanwhile, commenting on the raid, the Congress media coordinator Piyush Babele termed it the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of 18 years of BJP’s ‘corrupt rule’. If the government or the district collectors conduct similar inquiries in the state, many more such cases would surface, said the Congress leader.
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