By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 6 Aug: A case of embezzlement of government funds by forging documents in the forest department has been filed with the Police. The matter is related to the Uttarakhand Forest Department. According to the FIR filed by Forest Conservator Akash Verma, the matter is related to Rudraprayag Forest Division. Here, during the implementation of the action plan, government funds were transferred by the accused official into his personal account using some forged documents.
Once the matter came to light, a preliminary inquiry was conducted by the Forest Officers who found the allegation to be true. After which an FIR has been registered at the complaint of Forest Conservator Akash Verma. The case is related to finalisation of the 10 year action plan for forestry work in Rudraprayag Forest Division. Under the plan, a survey of a particular forest area was conducted and 5 workers were engaged to assist the survey team in logistics. Services of a labour contractor were hired and as per the arrangement, the forest department was to pay to the labour contractor who would then pay the wages of the hired labour force. However, an investigation was conducted into the payments made. It was revealed that two workers were paid on the basis of forged documents. This continued for 6 months. Both these workers worked with the team that did the survey work in the area till August 2023. After this, both these two workers quit the job and joined a private company in Haridwar, but the payment continued to be transferred in the name of these two workers from September till February 2024 to the account of labour contractors. When the matter came to light, Forest Conservator Akash Verma of Garhwal Circle complained about it in writing to the police. On the basis of the written complaint, the police conducted a preliminary investigation and after the matter was found correct in the investigation, an FIR was registered at Rudraprayag police station.
It is being claimed that there are many such cases of payments transferred on the basis of forged documents in the forest department, but this is the first case, where an FIR has been filed. The FIR is learnt to have been filed at the direction of Chief Conservator of Forest Working Plan Sanjeev Chaturvedi. The FIR has mentioned labour contractors Satish Bhatt and Ajay Panwar as the accused in the case.
