A symbolic picture has been placed in it.
Dhirendra Sharma, Jagran, Katra (Muzaffarpur). District Agriculture Officer Sudhir Kumar was arrested by the surveillance from his private residence on Saturday while taking a bribe of Rs 19 thousand. After this, during raids at his premises, the surveillance unearthed illegal assets worth crores.
Its investigation is going on, but in this case it has definitely been proved that the game of corruption is going on from top to bottom in the District Agriculture Office. This is because the employee Santosh Kumar Sah, who gave bribe to the District Agriculture Officer, has also been arrested on charges of scam and has gone to jail.
After being released from selection, he made a deal of Rs 2 lakh for his contribution. Its first installment was contributed by paying Rs 1 lakh 81 thousand. Till now the senior officer of the department was not aware nor the monitoring. Not only this, Santosh also made his suspended wife Deepa Kumari contribute. The couple faces serious cases of irregularities in the agriculture department.
To grab the amount of agricultural input and crop damage grant, the name of a ten-year-old child along with five members of the same family was also added to the beneficiary list. The investigation also revealed that non-ryot farmers were benefited by ignoring the ryot farmers.
Santosh had created such a system with the help of departmental setting that despite being BTM (Block Technical Manager) in Bochahan, he contributed as Agriculture Coordinator in Katra. Not only this, his wife Deepa Kumari was also posted in the same block. Both of them contributed in the neighboring Panchayats and Santosh started looking after the work of both of them together. It is said that due to the strong hold of senior officials, this game continued for a long time.
Panchayat allocation game in Katra
In the year 2022-23, Santosh was in charge of Agriculture Coordinator in Nagawara Panchayat. Complaints of irregularities had come to light during that time also. After his transfer in the year 2024, his wife Deepa Kumari was made the Agriculture Coordinator in the same Panchayat. The husband and wife together were engaged in embezzlement of government funds.
The signature of the ward member was misused to withdraw the amount. When Pramod Chaupal, ward member of Nagbara Panchayat, got information that his signature had been used in paying the compensation amount, he complained about it to the BDO and Block Agriculture Officer.
The then BDO Shashi Prakash got the matter thoroughly investigated. After this, an FIR was lodged against Santosh Sah and his wife Deepa Kumari was suspended. Deepa has been posted as Block Coordinator in Mushahari. Santosh had rejoined the post of Sahebganj BTM in December. Pramod says that if there is an in-depth investigation in the Agriculture Department, many more people can also come under the ambit of investigation.