Odisha IAS officer held for taking Rs 1 lakh bribe

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Vigilance department sleuths on Monday arrested IAS officer Bijay Ketan Upadhyaya for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 1 lakh.

The 2009-batch IAS officer is serving as the director of horticulture, Odisha government.

The bureaucrat’s office, residence and other places were searched by the anti-corruption agency officials following his arrest.

A few days ago, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik had announced his government would not tolerate corruption in any form.

Naveen’s former Cabinet colleague Dr Damodar Rout had earlier alleged that over one hundred crore rupees were siphoned off by unscrupulous officers of the horticulture department in the name of planting fruit saplings.

Dr Rout had even sent details of corruption to the chief minister and recommended strong action against the accused officers.

During the year 2018, 182 trap cases have been registered against 195 persons, including 192 public servants and 3 private persons. The trap cases have been registered against 12 Class-I officers, 10 Class-II officers, 161 Class-III employees, 9 Class-IV employees and 3 private persons for demand and acceptance of bribe amounting to Rs 16.90 lakh. Notably, during 2018, there was a perceptible increase in registration of trap cases by the Vigilance department.

As many as 182 trap cases were registered against 195 persons as against 161 trap cases registered against 177 persons during 2017, recording a rise of 13 per cent.

Out of the total trap cases during 2018, 7 cases of interception of public servants while travelling with huge unaccounted cash of Rs.23.04 lakh and gold coins were registered as against 6 interception cases involving Rs 15.61 lakh registered during 2017. Similarly, out of 7 interception cases of 2018, 5 cases were registered against Class-I officers as against 3 cases in 2017.

Details of trap cases of the Vigilance department in 2019 will be published in January.