Patna, (Bihar Times): The State Vigilance Bureau on Tuesday unearthed a Rs one crore scam in the land acquisition process for the East-West Corridor (National Highway-57) in Madhubani district and arrested eight state government employees, including District Land Acquisition Officer, Shyam Kishore Prasad. Illegal and inflated payments have been made allegedly to at least 30 landowners. In all 10 government officials were booked.
Assistant Engineer Ramprit Roy, Junior Engineer S K Mahto, Block Kanungo Shivlal Paswan and Amins (land measurer) Javachh Yadav and Gulab Roy were among those arrested. Four officials, including a retired executive engineer, Ramanad Singh, are absconding. Raids are on to arrest them. The land was acquired in four blocks of the district.
According to the Additional Director General of Vigilance, Neelmani, the land acquisition officials flouted NH Act 1956 by adopting pick and choose method for selecting beneficiaries and paying them extra compensation.
The Bureau is assessing the illegal payment and inflated payments to several land owners. The fund misappropriation can be more than Rs one crore. All illegal payments were made during the past one year. The Bureau team is searching the house of Shyam Kishore Prasad in Patna in order to find more evidence.
He said that the department officials have questioned a dozen farmers and house-owners, who could be the potential beneficiaries in the project. He added that the government has so far given compensations worth Rs 40 crore for acquiring land for a 40 km-stretch in Madhubani.
The officials reportedly connived with beneficiaries to change land categories in official records. Non-commercial plots were changed to commercial plots, non-residential to residential, brick and mud houses to pucca ones, one-floor houses to two-floor ones—all in order to get extra payment. In certain cases, a plot was put in two categories simultaneously, one house was recorded twice, and the measures of plots were altered to suit the beneficiaries.
