Thane, Oct 10 (PTI) A village sarpanch has been arrested for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 7.5 lakh to issue a mandatory guarantee letter for a lake conservation and beautification project in Maharashtra’s Thane district, officials said on Saturday.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) laid a trap and caught the accused, Sanjay Parshuram Naik (62), the sarpanch of Karivili village in Bhiwandi taluka, while accepting the bribe on Friday, inspector Pramod Ahire said.
According to the ACB, the complainant had secured a tender of Rs 2.33 crore from the Minor Irrigation Department of the Thane Zilla Parishad for the conservation and beautification of the Karivili lake.
While 90 per cent of the project funding is provided by the government, the remaining 10 per cent, around Rs 23.3 lakh, was to be contributed locally through public participation via the Karivli Gram Panchayat, they said.
Zilla Parishad authorities instructed the complainant to submit a guarantee letter from the Gram Panchayat regarding the instalment-wise deposit of the local share before the work order could be issued. When the complainant approached Naik for the guarantee letter, the latter allegedly demanded Rs 10 lakh, part of which was initially paid.
However, Naik failed to submit the letter to the Zilla Parishad and subsequently demanded another Rs 10 lakh.
Naik negotiated and brought the bribe amount down to Rs 7.5 lakh, the ACB said.
“We have registered a case against the accused under the Prevention of Corruption Act (Amendment 2018),” Ahire said. PTI COR ARU
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