In a shocking development in the Kanker district of Chhattisgarh, a food inspector has been temporarily relieved from his duty (suspended) after he ordered to drain around 21 lakh litres of water from the Paralkot reservoir to retrieve his phone on May 21.
The bizarre incident occurred when the Government official identified as Rajesh Vishwas had gone on an outing with friends when he accidentally dropped his phone samsung galaxy S23 worth Rs one lakh while clicking a selfie, following which he asked some local divers to assist him in retrieving his phone. However, their attempts proved to be futile due to the uneven and rocky surface of the reservoir.
It’s been reported that after failing to retrieve the phone, Rajesh Vishwas then called the SDO of the irrigation department and took verbal approval from him to drain the reservoir, following which he deployed two 30 diesel pumps which continuously ran for three consecutive days to drain the reservoir, it’s been learnt that the pumps were only got stopped when an officer from the irrigation department arrived at the spot following a complaint.
Now after the photos and media pertaining to the incident have been doing the rounds on the internet, Rajesh Vishwas has been suspended by the district collector. At the same time, a show cause notice has also been issued to the concerned official of the irrigation department from whom Rajesh Vishwas had got verbal approval to drain the reservoir.
Meanwhile, in a video release, the accused inspector Rajesh Vishwas claimed that he had not done anything beyond his authority as the water drained from the tanker of the reservoir was of no use to the farmers. He had only taken out around 3 feet of water after which he was able to retrieve his phone, Rajesh Vishwas further claimed that he channelised the drained water in the canal for the benefit of farmers and he did all the management on his own expense.
On the other hand, while reacting to the incident, local Congress MLA Anoop Nag said that he got the information about the matter through the media reports that a food inspector of Pankhajanur, Rajesh Vishwas, had gone for a picnic near Kherkatta dam. After he lost his phone, he emptied the whole dam to find it. This area has a lot of farmers, and though the phone and its data are important, causing a loss of the public’s water is unacceptable.
The MLA further said, “many people were deployed to find it, though a search must have been done for the mobile phone but draining the whole water from the dam is unacceptable. There will be an investigation into the matter according to the ADM, and I want the collector to take strict action.”
It is being speculated that if the water wasted during retrieving the phone of the food inspector would have been used in the irrigation, then around 1,500 acres of the land would have been irrigated by it.
