Two Chhattisgarh officials punished for emptying dam to recover expensive phone

Bhopal: Authorities in Chhattisgarh imposed a fine on a senior government official and suspended another for emptying a dam to recover an expensive phone fallen into the water.

Rajesh Vishwas, a food officer in Koilibeda block of Kanker district, has been suspended for having drained 42 lakh litres of water, which was enough to irrigate 1,500 acres of farmland, according to NDTV.

The Sub Divisional Officer RK Dhivar who had given the nod to drain the water has been slapped with a fine of Rs ₹ 53,000.

The Superintendent Engineer of the Indravati project asked RK Dhivar in writing why the cost of water should not be recovered from his salary.

Rajesh Vishwas was enjoying a holiday at the Paralkot Reservoir of Kherkatta Dam when his smartphone worth around ₹ 1 lakh fell into the water.

Locals vainly dived in to recover the phone from stilling basin of the dam's waste weir, some 15 feet deep in the dam.

Afterwards, the officer ran two 30 hp diesel pumps for four days draining large quality of water which is precious for the crops and animal in the area.

Vishwas said recovering the phone was important as it had some official department data, and termed the water was ‘unusable’.

Rajesh Vishwas claimed that people in the area told him that the phone could be found if the water was two or three feet shallower.

‘I called the SDO and requested him to allow me to drain some water into the nearby canal if there was no problem in doing so. He said it was not an issue if three-four feet deep water was drained, and would in fact benefit the farmers who would have more water. That's why I got help from locals to drain around three feet of water and got my phone back,’ he was quoted as saying,

However, RK Dhivar told journalists that lot more water than he had okayed was taken out.