- Saturday, April 27, 2024
Authorities, however, suspended Vishwas over the act and recently, the state’s irrigation department sent him a letter penalising him.
By: Shubham Ghosh
A government official, who recently made the headlines after draining water out of a reservoir in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh to recover his expensive smartphone that fell into it, has been fined by the authorities.
Rajesh Vishwas, a food inspector who pumped out millions of litres of water, has been asked to pay a fine of Rs 53,092 (£519).
He dropped the Samsung device, costing around Rs 100,000 (£977) while taking a selfie, into Kharketta Dam in the state last week and defended his act of draining out water saying it contained sensitive government data.
Vishwas has been accused of misusing his position.
Local drivers first tried to find the phone but after they failed to fish it out from the depths, a diesel pump was brought in, Vishwas said in a video statement quoted in the media, the BBC reported. The pump ran for several days continuously, emptying thousands of litres of water. The phone was eventually found but it was not working anymore.
Vishwas had then claimed that he had received verbal permission from an official to drain “some water into a nearby canal”, adding that the latter said it would help farmers, the report added.
Authorities, however, suspended Vishwas over the act and recently, the state’s irrigation department sent him a letter penalising him. According to the BBC which saw a copy of the letter, it said the food inspector had wasted 4.1 million litres of water (880,000 gallons) for his “personal interest” and that he had to pay for the water and a penalty of Rs 10,000 (£98) for “evacuating water without permission”.
It also said his action was “illegal” and “punishable under Chhattisgarh’s Irrigation Act”.
The incident caused an outrage as many parts of India reel under severe water scarcity, particularly in months of scorching heat.
