BERHAMPUR: People can go far to feed their addiction. M Pitambar went a little too far. A peon with Ganjam district education office (DEO), he sold his office property, furniture and even files to buy his daily quota of booze.
Surprisingly, the sale of belongings has been continuing for last two years but the authorities did not pay any attention to the building as the office had shifted.Rather the old building was left to the custody of the peon who sold all files, furniture - and even doors and windows - of the building to scrap dealers to meet expenses of liquor.
Interestingly, the building was located by the side of Town Police station in Berhampur city. It functioned as Ganjam district inspector (DI) of schools since its establishment in 1948. Around five years back, the name was changed to DEO and moved to a new building in the city.
However, the files, furniture and other old belongings were kept in the building which was left in the custody of Pitambar. Despite having a good number of records and furniture, none from the district education department visited the building during the last two years.
On Friday last, section officer Jayant Kumar Sahu went to the office to check some old files but was perplexed upon finding the building totally vacant. Not only the files and furniture, some doors and windows too were missing. Sahu was quick to apprise the incident to the district education officer and file a complaint in Town Police station.
Since Pitambar was the only person deployed to guard the building with its belongings, police took him for interrogation. Police were surprised when he revealed that he had sold all the files, furniture including 35 almirahs, 10 sets of chairs and tables besides two doors to scrap dealers to buy liquor during last two years as no one visited the closed office building.
Police registered a case and arrested Pitambar on Saturday besides arresting three scrap dealers in this connection. The four arrested were produced in a court on Sunday. DEO Binita Senapati said the department has suspended Pitambar from service and a departmental inquiry would be conducted into the matter. n Interestingly, the DEO has no details of the files and documents.