SAMBALPUR: Planning member of Sambalpur Development Authority (SDA), Bandita Mohapatra was arrested by Sambalpur police on Thursday for her alleged involvement in issuing forged approval of building plans to applicants.
The arrest was made on the basis of a complaint lodged by one Debraj Sahu at Ainthapali police on September 1, who alleged to have received a forged SDA approval certificate for the plan of a building on his land at Kaensir area in the city.
Police said, that in April this year, Debraj had applied for approval of the plan of his building with the help of an architect, Manas Chaini. Subsequently, in this connection, he met the planning member of the SDA, Bandita Mohapatra, who asked him to contact the dealing assistant, Laxmi Narayan Samal.
The dealing assistant and the architect Manas Chaini gave him a hand note of the total fee of around Rs 2.60 lakh and asked Debraj to pay the amount in cash. After payment of the amount when Debraj asked for the money receipt, they did not provide it and instead gave him the approval letter for his building plan. But later, the complainant came to know that it was a fake approval letter, said police.
Police further said, during the investigation, it came to the fore that though the offline application and approval for the building plan has been stopped since 2021, the dealing assistant and architect in conspiracy with the planning member accepted an application from the complainant in 2023 on a backdate and issued a forged approval.
On August 22, police had arrested Samal besides four others in connection with the issue of fake approval of building plans after a case was lodged with the Khetrajpur police station of the city. So far 10 cases of fake approval of building plans have already been registered at Khetrajpur, Ainthapali, Town, Burla, Dhanupali and Burla police stations. Further probe to find other officials’ involvement is on.