By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR/CUTTACK: The expelled BJD MLA from Gopalpur, Pradeep Panigrahy on Monday received double jolt with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik referring the corruption allegations against him to Lokayukta for investigation while The Additional District and Sessions (ADG) court-3 today rejected the bail plea. Earlier, the MLA’s bail application had also rejected by the Bhubaneswar SDJM Court.
“CM @Naveen_Odisha has referred the corruption allegations against Gopalpur MLA Pradeep Panigrahi to Hon’ble Lokayukta of #Odisha for investigation. This is the first corruption allegation referred by #Odisha Government to Lokayukt after its creation,” CMO Odisha tweeted@CMO_Odisha.
MLA Panigrahy has been remanded to judicial custody for 14 days at the Jharpada Special Jail in Bhubaneswar. He was arrested on December 3 by the Odisha Crime Branch in connection with a case registered with the Cyber Police Station under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 469, 471, 120-B of the IPC and Section 66C/66D of IT Act.
Akash and his father and suspended IFS officer Abhay Kant Pathak were arrested by the State Vigilance for allegedly amassing assets worth crores disproportionate to their known sources of income. During interrogation, Akash Pathak’s personal secretary David Peter revealed that the tainted IFS officer had spent lakhs of rupees to project his son as the MD of Tata Motors. The Vigilance sources said after the interrogation, Akash had opened an office at his father’s Government quarters at Unit-9 in Bhubaneswar in the name of Tata Motors in 2018.
The Special Investigation team (SIT) plans to bring Akash on remand and conduct a face-to-face grilling of him and his secretary David Peter. Expelled BJD MLA Panigrahy will also be questioned, if required, after being brought on a remand, Vigilance sources said adding that the arrested IFS Officer will also be taken on remand for questioning.
Meanwhile, funds amounting to Rs 726 crore sanctioned by the Government towards afforestation during 2020-21 has further raised doubts on suspended IFS Officer Pathak’s involvement in massive misappropriation of the funds.After Pathak came under the Vigilance scanner and property worth crores of rupees in his possession were detected.
On June 30 2019, the Additional PPCF (Plan, Program & Afforestation) through an email had submitted details about the afforestation programme for 2020-2021. He informed Minister Bikram Keshari Arukha that target was set to afforest 1,30,270 hectre area in 2020-21 to plant over Rs 16.23 crore saplings under various programmes, including Green India Mission and CAMPA. And, a budget of Rs 726 crore was earmarked for the same.
As per Government records, Odisha had got Rs 5,933 crore from the Centre for CAMPA, the highest among all the States, followed by Chhattisgarh at Rs 5,791 crore and Madhya Pradesh at 5,196 crore. In all, the Centre gave Rs 47,872 crore to all the states and UTs in 2019 under CAMPA, the main aim of which is to increase forest cover in India.
It may be noted here that out of the Rs 5,933 crore fund allocated for Odisha, the State had taken up 678 projects worth Rs 1,550 crore like drinking water, housing, skill development and afforestation activities.State Government has utilised Rs 860 crore out of the fund available under Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) in activities other than plantation in 2018-19.
The State had taken up 678 projects worth Rs 1,550 crore like drinking water, housing, skill development and afforestation activities. While 244 drinking water projects were taken up for supply of piped water to 640 villages in mining affected areas, funds have been sanctioned for construction of 29,829 houses for economically weaker sections in mining areas.
Though the CAMPA fund was created for compensatory afforestation in areas where green cover was destroyed due to intensive mining activities, later the norms were relaxed to expand the area of activities to improve the living condition of people affected by mining.
In the current financial year, the State is reported to have utilised Rs 85 crore out of Rs 215 crore in other activities. The fund utilisation in 2017-18 was Rs 2,565 crore out of project estimate of Rs 4,640 crore sanctioned for 2,228 works.
As per the Forest Survey of India Report of 2019, there has been an increase of just 3% in the forest cover in India compared to 2017. The total forest cover in the country, as per the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) is 7,12,249 km2 which is 21.67% of the total geographical area of the country. This is an increase of 3976 km2 compared to that of the total forest cover in ISFR-2017.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Odisha vigilance, which is probing arrested 1987 batch IFS officer, Abhay Kant Pathak, has so far found almost Rs 17 crore in cash from him, apart from undeclared property documents in his and his relatives’ names. Pathak spent at least Rs 3 crore on the 20-plus air trips that he undertook on chartered flight during the lockdown.
The arrest of Pathak and his son Akash from Odisha, and his subsequent suspension from the service on charges of accumulating massive ill-gotten wealth, have brought into focus the misuse of the huge funds that the Central government gives to all the state governments and union territories under Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) for compensatory afforestation.
Pathak was posted as Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (APCCF), Plan, Programme and Afforestation, since 2 June 2018 before he was arrested. He was handling the funds that Odisha had got under CAMPA in 2019.
Under Indian laws, forest land can be diverted for non-forest purposes such as construction of dams, mining and other developmental activities after taking permission from the government. Since this diversion of forest land results in loss of forest cover and biodiversity, compensatory afforestation is also mandated under the law and this is where CAMPA comes into play. For this afforestation, the companies which are acquiring the forest land, should provide an alternative land and pay for planting of the new trees.
