Cuttack, June 6: Odisha Vigilance on Saturday apprehended a TPCODL employee while allegedly accepting a bribe of ₹15,000 from a farmer for replacing a damaged electric pole in his agricultural land.

The accused has been identified as Dharma Niranjan Chaudhury, Line Man-A of the Narsinghpur Electrical Section under TPCODL, Cuttack.

According to Vigilance officials, an 11 KV power line passed over the complainant farmer's land, where an electric pole had become damaged and was posing a serious safety risk. Concerned about the possibility of an untoward incident, the farmer approached the local electricity office and requested replacement of the damaged pole. The task was assigned to Chaudhury.

During the process, Chaudhury allegedly demanded a bribe of ₹25,000 from the farmer for carrying out the replacement work. On June 2, he replaced the damaged pole with a new one and received ₹8,000 from the farmer through a UPI transaction. Subsequently, he allegedly demanded the remaining ₹17,000 and did not remove the old damaged pole from the farmer's land.

Unable to pay the remaining amount, the farmer expressed his financial constraints. Following negotiations, the accused allegedly reduced the demand to ₹15,000. Aggrieved by the continued demand for illegal gratification and alleged harassment, the farmer approached Odisha Vigilance and lodged a complaint.

Acting on the complaint, a Vigilance team laid a trap and apprehended Chaudhury while he was allegedly accepting ₹15,000 from the complainant. The entire bribe amount was recovered from his possession and seized in the presence of witnesses.

Following the successful trap operation, Vigilance officials launched searches at one location linked to the accused to investigate possible disproportionate assets (DA).

In this connection, a case has been registered under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018.