Weeks after a food inspector had been booked for illegally draining around 21 lakh litres of water from a reservoir to recover his cell phone that he accidentally dropped into the water, another shocking incident of misusing stored water from a reservoir in Chhattisgarh has come to the fore.
In the latest incident, a police official from the Balod district of Chhattisgarh has been accused of stealing water from a reservoir for his private fishery. As per the reports, an official of the Balod police had allegedly used Darritola dam water for fish farming for a year.
The incident came to light after a few villagers and officials from the Water Resources Department came to know about this, following which the concerned official of the Water Resources Department has assured to get the motor removed and conduct a probe into the matter. As per a report of Lallantop, the SDOP accused of stealing water from the dam has been identified as Mayank Ran Singh.
Earlier, food inspector Rajesh Vishwas of Kanker district of Chhattisgarh had 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 Vishwas had gone on an outing with friends when he accidentally dropped his phone samsung galaxy S23 worth Rs 1 lakh while clicking a selfie. He then asked some local divers to assist him in retrieving his phone. However, their attempts proved futile due to the uneven and rocky surface of the reservoir.
It’s been reported that after failing to retrieve the phone, Vishwas called the irrigation department’s SDO and took verbal approval from him to drain the reservoir. It was then reported that Vishwas deployed two 30 diesel pumps that continuously ran for three consecutive days to drain the reservoir. It was learnt that the pumps were only stopped when an officer from the irrigation department arrived at the spot following a complaint.
Later the accused inspector Rajesh Vishwas in a video release, 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, and he had only taken out around 3 feet of water after which he was able to retrieve his phone. Vishwas further claimed that he channelised the drained water in the canal for the benefit of farmers, and he did all the management at his own expense.
Days after the incident, Vishwas and two other concerned officials were booked by the police for illegally draining the water from the reservoir. The other two officials booked with the food inspector Vishwas were sub-divisional officer RL Dhiwar and sub-engineer Chhotelal Dhruv from the water resources department.
The Water Resources Department had also asked Vishwas to pay a fine of Rs 53,092 within ten days at the Jagdalpur divisional office of the department. The letter issued against the inspector read, “The water filled in the diesel cistern has been wasted by taking it out for extraction, which is illegal and comes under the category of punishment under the clauses contained in the Irrigation Act.
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