Rayagada: Odisha Vigilance on Thursday arrested Assistant Project Director and three other officials of Office of Rayagada Project Director Watershed for alleged embezzlement of government funds under NREGS. 

The accused persons were Rajendra Nath Naik, Asst. Project Director- cum- Project Implementing Agency (APD-cum-PIA) (Class-1); Jogendra Khosla, Soil Conservation Overseer; Deepak Kumar Sahoo, Soil Conservation Overseer and SriKumar Nayak, Soil Conservation Extension Worker - of the office of Project Director (PD), Watershed, Rayagada. 

During verification by Odisha Vigilance on allegations of misappropriation of government funds without excavation of Farm Ponds under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in Kashipur Block in Rayagada district, the four officials were found to have embezzled government money over Rs 20 lakh without excavation of 23 Farm ponds in different villages in the tribal district. 

The accused officials were found to have siphoned off the above money to accounts of labourers having job cards and withdrawn the same. 

The Vigilance team is verifying the transactions as well as the execution of farm pond excavation project. 

In this connection, Koraput Vigilance PS Case has been registered against all the accused persons.