Bhubaneswar: A hunt is on for the absconding Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer held guilty by the special Vigilance court in the ORHDC scam Tuesday.
Vigilance department sleuths carried out raids at different places linked to the bureaucrat, Vinod Kumar, for the second consecutive day Thursday.
Earlier, the court had issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against the six convicts including Kumar who were absent during pronouncement of the judgement.
A five-member Vigilance team Thursday raided Kumar’s residence in the VIP area under Nayapalli police station. The team also conducted a raid at the residence of Kumar’s accountant, Pradeep Kumar Rout, in Niladri Vihar area.
Corrupt officials had given loans to a voluntary organisation for construction of building centres after the 1999 Super Cyclone flouting all HUDCO guidelines.
Earlier, during his stint as the Managing Director of Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC) in 2000, Kumar had illegally sanctioned a loan from the coffers of ORHDC to a non-government organisation – Gramya Vikash Manch –for developing building centres.
Building materials like bricks, doors, iron grills and others were produced at the building centres for use in the construction of houses to rehabilitate the homeless in cyclone-hit areas.
ORHDC sanctioned a loan of Rs 21.50 lakh in a single phase in complete violation of guidelines, which made it mandatory to release loans in phases after examining progress of the work.
In 2010, when the charge-sheet was filed in court, the loan amount had ballooned to Rs 55 lakh. Moreover, the money was sanctioned to the NGO even before ORHDC received funds from HUDCO.
The court also noted that the authorities had not signed any agreement with the NGO. As per guidelines, the NGO was also expected to deposit collateral security for availing the loan, but it did not.
Of the convicts, only Sanjay Mohanty, the then assistant manager of ORHDC, was present when the judgement was announced. He was given rigorous imprisonment of three years and fined Rs 75,000.