NAVIN’S REIGN: A J.E. BECOMES MULTI-MILLIONAIRE, PEOPLES WANE

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The Vigilance wing of Orissa Police has embarrassed Chief Minister Navin Patnaik once again.

When he is anxious to be known as the ablest and cleanest Chief Minister the State has ever had, the Vigilance Police, unable to slough over whistleblowers, has time and again discovered that in his reign corruption has created multi-millionaires even amongst low-paid government servants like never before in Orissa.

Finding a multi-millionaire in a Junior Engineer (J.E.) in the pay scale of Rs.5000/- on December 22, 2007 may be cited as the latest instance.

This latest discovery of Vigilance was sequential to insistence of a whistleblower aware of how inhabitants of Nuapada have been waning away in starvation even as officials in charge of execution of developmental works are swindling away 90% of project funds by sharing the booty with controllers of administration at Bhubaneswar.

J.E. Kamadev Dip, placed in Sadar Block of Nuapada District where people perishing under starvation were caught in camera while trying to overcome the eerie effect of hunger by eating a sort of lime stone, and where, according to the Comptroller and Auditor general of India corruption is more a practice than aberration and where according to a study by CEFS, condition of the people is worse than Sub-Saharan Africa, has become so bold in acquisition of property that over and above an array of real estates he has built up a five-storied market complex in a prime location of Bolangir Town at its busiest point, the college square.

Vigilance raid, partially conducted, has, by the evening, unearthed property worth Rs. Seventy lakhs, pending evaluation of Bank Lockers and Benami acquisitions.

If a J.E. has swindled public funds to this extent, just imagine what his superiors and the godfathers at Bhubaneswar have done.

This is Orissa, run by Navin Patnaik, who according to his puppets in the Press and amongst the intelligentsia is the cleanest chief minister ever to have taken over the reins of government.

How should one react?