How a panchayat clerk in MP became a crorepati The Statesman. 17 Jul 2014 | Bhopal, 16 July He owns five houses, four plots, agricultural land measuring 40 acres, a dairy farm with 50 buffaloes, gold ornaments weighing 300 grams, 1 kg of silver jewellery, a costly jeep, a car and three two-wheelers ~ all these adding up to over Rs 3 crore. And he is a panchayat clerk drawing a salary of Rs 20,000 a month ! Welcome to the treasure-trove of 48-old Babulal Patel. It took a team of 50 Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta Special Police Establishment (SPE) personnel to raid his house and various other premises on Tuesday and the most sensational find was an iron safe that had to be dug out of his kitchen floor. It contained jewellery, cash and keys to bank lockers. The officials got a clue to the existence of the safe buried underground when they were rummaging utensils in the kitchen. Mr Patel joined Maheshwar Janpad Panchayat in Khargone district near Indore as an assistant grade II employee in 1998. His income from 16 years of service should be around Rs 25 lakh. According to Lokayukta SP Virendra Singh, the raids were conducted following a complaint that Mr Patel had amassed wealth disproportionate to his income. The 50-member SPE team fanned out to Maheshwar town, Indore city and Machalpur village in Khargone district. The raids revealed Mr Patel had domestic goods worth Rs 7.75 lakh, 28 bank accounts with Rs 14.73 lakh in deposit and a locker in Maheshwar. “Patel has also invested Rs 4.44 lakh in various insurance policies,” the SP said, adding that a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered against him. However, Mr Patel said: “I have 67 acres of land in my name since 1977. That is also my source of income.”
Posted on: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 03:31:00 +0000
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