Odisha vigilance finds over Rs 3 cr cash at OAS officer's properties
On Friday, vigilance agents recovered approximately Rs 3.165 crore in unaccounted cash during raids on the homes of Odisha Administrative Officer (OAS) Prasanta Kumar Rout in Bhubaneswar and Nabarangpur.
user1
Bhubaneswar: On Friday, vigilance agents recovered approximately Rs 3.165 crore in unaccounted cash during raids on the homes of Odisha Administrative Officer (OAS) Prasanta Kumar Rout in Bhubaneswar and Nabarangpur.
He is currently working as an additional sub-collector in Nabarangpur.
According to sources, over Rs 2.25 crore in unaccounted money was discovered at his Kanan Vihar residence in Bhubaneswar. Rout's wife allegedly threw six cash-stashed carton boxes onto their neighbor's terrace and phoned them, requesting that the cash be hidden. The carton boxes were later recovered from his neighbor's house, and multiple counting machines were used to calculate Rout's massive cash stash.
His family also resisted Vigilance officials from entering their two-story city home, and they had to wait for more than 20 minutes before being allowed in.
According to the sources, another Rs 89.5 lakh, along with gold ornaments, was recovered from his Nabarangpur residence.
Following the receipt of allegations against Rout for amassing disproportionate assets, searches were conducted at his Kanan Vihar residence, Nabarangpur residence and office, his parental house in Bhadrak district's Bahudarada village, and five different properties belonging to his acquaintances.
This is the state's second largest cash recovery from a government official. In April 2022, the Vigilance Department recovered Rs 3.41 crore in cash during a raid on the properties of Kartikeswar Roul, an assistant engineer in the Minor Irrigation Division in Ganjam district.
Notably, Odisha Police Housing and Welfare Corporation (OPHWC) deputy manager Pratap Samal threw a bag full of cash on a neighbor's terrace in order to avoid a vigilance department raid in 2021. The total seizure was Rs 15 crore, or 1021% of Samal and his family's known sources of income.
