Balangir: Odisha Vigilance on Tuesday apprehended Alan Behera, a Revenue Inspector (RI) of Saintala Revenue Circle in Balangir district, for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 3,000 from an applicant to process the conversion of agricultural land into homestead land.

According to Odisha Vigilance, Behera had demanded the bribe to process the applicant's file and submit a field enquiry report to the competent authority in connection with a mutation case.

The applicant had submitted an online application on September 7, 2026, seeking conversion of agricultural land into homestead land in accordance with the guidelines of the Revenue and Disaster Management Department.

Despite repeated requests, the Revenue Inspector did not initiate the process. Instead, he demanded Rs 6,000 to proceed with the application and facilitate the issuance of a Record of Rights (RoR) for the homestead land, Vigilance said.

When the applicant expressed his inability to pay the amount, Behera reduced the demand to Rs 3,000. Aggrieved by the demand, the applicant approached Odisha Vigilance.

Acting on the complaint, a Vigilance team laid a trap on Tuesday and caught Behera while he was accepting Rs 3,000 from the applicant. The entire bribe amount was recovered from his possession and seized, according to the agency.

Following the trap, Odisha Vigilance launched simultaneous searches at two locations linked to the accused Revenue Inspector to investigate the possibility of possession of assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.

In this connection, Sambalpur Vigilance Division Police Station Case No. 19/2026 has been registered against Behera under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018.