8 officials booked for embezzlement of govt funds in C'garh

Eight personnel of Raigarh Municipal Corporation (RMC), including its ex-commissioner, were today booked on separate charges of embezzlement of funds and corruption in Chhattisgarh, police said.
Six separate FIRs were registered against eight officials and employees of RMC including the then commissioner Pramod Shukla and cartographer Pratul Shrivastav, based on the report lodged by Raigarh Joint Collector, SHO City Kotwali police station Dharmanand Shukla said.
No arrests have been made in this connection, he said.
Yesterday, Shukla was transferred as Chief Municipal Officer to Kumhari municipal council in the Durg district.
The officials have been accused of misappropriation of government funds to the tune of crores of rupees in procurement of cement poles, barbed wire, chlorine tablets and others besides causing loss to the state exchequer by violating rules, the SHO said.

Following the allegations on the officials, Raigarh collector Alarmel Mangai D had constituted a 17-member committee headed by Joint Collector N R Sahu to probe the charges.
According to Sahu, probe found the officials guilty of committing corruption in materials procurement, regularisation of 50 daily wages employees, allocating shops to 15 ineligible persons in a newly-built shopping complex and committing irregularities in 15 per cent of the land reserved for economically weaker section in the Himalaya Heights colony.
They were booked under sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 120b (punishment of criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of IPC along with provisions ofPreventionofCorruptionAct, the officer said, adding a probe was underway.