Axe to fall on 5 staff of Bolangir Municipality for swindling old-age pension money

A large-scale corruption in the disbursement of old-age pensions has come to light in Bolangir Municipality recently. The District Collector has ordered suspension of five employees of the civic body after they were found to have embezzled money meant for old-age pension of senior citizens.

As per reports, the accused had misappropriated money to the tune of Rs 5 lakh during Covid times between 2019 and 2020.

The matter came to the fore after two of the employees were asked by the Municipality authorities to cough up the amount they have swindled.

Payment receipts which OTV got hold of, revealed that one Ashish Mohapatra has paid Rs 1.05 lakh and another employee, Ashok Kumbhar paid Rs 20,600 on account of recovery of the Old age pension embezzled by them.

While the Municipality asked them to refund the money, no action was taken against the erring officials.

However, the District Collector took cognizance of the matter and reportedly asked the Municipality Executive Officer to suspend the officers.

The Municipality authorities are yet to issue any statement in this connection and were unavailable for comments.