Bhubaneswar: The officials of the Vigilance Department today arrested the CDPO and a clerk-cum-accountant in Odisha’s Rayagada district for taking bribe from a tribal woman to facilitate her appointment as an Anganwadi worker.

The Vigilance sleuths arrested Bisamcuttack Child Development Project Officer (CDPO) Sushila Sabar and clerk-cum-accountant Ram Chandra Patra for taking Rs 80,000 as bribe from the woman, a member of the Dongria Kondh community.

The tribal woman was selected for the post of Anganwadi worker in her native village recently. However, the two government officials sought Rs 1 lakh as bribe from the tribal woman to provide her the appointment letter.

On behalf of the CDPO, the clerk-cum-accountant took Rs 20,000 as the first installment of the bribe from the tribal woman through UPI transaction on June 20.

He had asked the tribal woman to pay the remaining Rs 80,000 by June 23 to get her appointment letter.

The woman had lodged a complaint in this regard with the Vigilance Department.

Accordingly, a trap was laid and the two government officials were caught red-handed while accepting Rs 80,000 as bribe from the complainant.

The entire bribe money was recovered and seized. Following this, simultaneous searches are going on at two locations linked to the two officials to unearth any disproportionate asset (DA), said the Vigilance.

The Vigilance Police Station at Koraput has registered a case against the two officials under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act-2018.

It is worth mentioning here that Patra was earlier booked for misappropriation of government funds during his tenure as the Nazir in the office of the Tahsildar in Rayagada.