Bolangir: The district Collector here has ordered for suspension of five employees of the Bolangir Municipality on charge of swindling old-age pension money meant for senior citizens during the Covid-19 pandemic, a report said Saturday.
The embezzlement of old-age pension which remained suppressed for three years has come to light during an audit. However, the executive officer of the civic body instead of taking legal action against the accused employees had only ordered for recovery of the funds from them.
Apprised of the development, Bolangir Collector Chanchal Rana ordered for suspension of the five employees. The development has sparked shockwaves in this town. The Collector has also directed to initiate the process for their dismissal.
As per reports, the accused had misappropriated money to the tune of `12 lakh during the lockdown for Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21 FY.
As people were staying in their homes and maintaining social distancing, the civic body employees were asked to make proper distribution of the old-age pension. Some of the employees thought it as an opportunity and gobbled up the pension money. The incident took place in 2020 but was covered up.
Three years later, an audit was conducted which exposed the fraud and found out that `12 lakh has been misappropriated. The matter came to the fore after two of the employees were asked by the Municipality authorities to cough up the amount they have swindled.
As a result, one Ashish Mohapatra paid `1.05 lakh and another employee, Ashok Kumbhar, paid `20,600 towards recovery of the old-age pension money embezzled by them.
Though the municipality asked them to refund the money, no action was taken against the errant officials. Efforts to contact the municipality executive officer Sami Reddy Jayashree on her phone (9937995835) proved futile as she did not respond to the call
Meanwhile, the municipality authorities are yet to issue any statement in this connection and were unavailable for comments.
PNN