Odisha Vigilance arrests four more in Rs 9.24 crore R&B fund fraud

The Odisha Vigilance has arrested four additional employees in connection with an alleged Rs 9.24 crore embezzlement scheme within the Office of the Superintending Engineer, Roads and Buildings (R&B) Division-I in Bhubaneswar. The new arrests include peons Dipak Kumar Routray and Laxman Biswal, along with private data entry operators Rajib Lochan Senapati and Soumya Ranjan Mohapatra.

These individuals allegedly colluded with Section Officer Banalata Mohanty and Junior Assistant Bibhudutta Nayak, who were previously arrested. The investigation indicates the fraud occurred between the financial years 2022-23 and 2025-26. The scheme involved generating fake sanction orders and bills for provisional gratuity, unutilised leave salary for retired employees, and bogus contingency fund claims.

These fraudulent documents were processed through the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS). While legitimate bills used correct beneficiary details, the fraudulent ones substituted account numbers belonging to 48 individuals, including relatives and associates of the accused. A total of 77 bank accounts were used to route the diverted funds.