New Delhi: An assistant sanitation inspector in Gurugram was terminated for allegedly duping people with AI-generated photos to show an illegal dumping site to be cleared. He also uploaded the photos on the grievance portal as proof that the complaint has been resolved.
Instead of sending workers to clear the waste and monitor the cleanup, Assistant Sanitation Inspector Waseem used AI to generate photos showing the site as clean. The deception, however, didn’t last long.
A complaint regarding the garbage on the site triggered a back-and-forth between officials, eventually revealing that the photograph was fake. This led to the termination of the ASI by the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG).
According to MCG officials, ASI Waseem had been manipulating photographs for the complaints from the grievance portal for some time. Waseem had been appointed through Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam Limited (HKRNL).
“It has been reported by Sandeep, Senior Sanitary Inspector, that Waseem, Assistant Sanitary Inspector (HKRNL), posted under Municipal Corporation, Gurugram, while dealing with public grievances, deliberately uploaded AI-manipulated photographs on the grievance portal to falsely show that the complaint had been resolved, whereas the complaint remained unattended,” read the statement by MCG.
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‘Breach of trust’
Before terminating Waseem’s services, the MCG conducted a departmental inquiry during which the ASI admitted to editing the photographs. However, the officials said that they found his reasons “unsatisfactory.” The officials say that he did so “with the intention of showing false compliance and obtaining closure of the complaint without carrying out the actual field work.”
The MCG statement said that editing photographs through AI tools and uploading the same on the official grievance portal “amounts to major fraud in grievance resolution and recommended immediate termination of the services.”
The order termed the act by ASI as “breach of trust, integrity and honesty expected from a public servant.”
Waseem was not the only one. Another ASI Harish Sharma was found to be marking his attendance on the Sanitation Monitoring System portal of MCG, fraudulently using “unauthorised, third-party apps such as Fly GPS” to spoof his GPS location.
“…thereby bypassing the security features of the official attendance application of the Municipal Corporation and fraudulently marking his attendance while remaining absent from duty,” the MCG statement read.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)