Bhubaneswar: Odisha Vigilance officials have seized Rs 2.40 crore in cash and property-related documents during searches linked to a government engineer, triggering fresh scrutiny over alleged disproportionate assets.
The raids were conducted following complaints against Vaikunthanath Behara, an Assistant Executive Engineer with the State Tribal Development Agency, accusing him of amassing wealth beyond his known sources of income. Teams carried out simultaneous searches at nine locations connected to him, including premises in Bhubaneswar, Balasore, Jajpur and Baliguda.
Officials said the cash was recovered from his residence and bank lockers. During the operation, they also found documents linked to 13 house plots and identified five multi-storey buildings registered in his name, four of them in Bhubaneswar. The value of these buildings is estimated to be over Rs 20 crore.
In addition, the searches reportedly uncovered house plots around Bhubaneswar valued at about Rs 14 crore, 341 grams of gold jewellery and bank deposits of Rs 45 lakh.
Behara joined government service in 1999 as a junior engineer with a monthly salary of Rs 6,000, later rising to assistant engineer in 2016 and Assistant Executive Engineer in February this year. Vigilance officials said further inquiry is under way.
