Bhubaneswar, 13 October (H.S.): Odisha Vigilance on Tuesday apprehended Alan Behera, a Revenue Inspector (RI) of Saintala Revenue Circle in Balangir district, for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of ₹3,000 to process an application for conversion of agricultural land into homestead land.

According to Vigilance officials, the complainant had applied online on September 7, 2026, for the conversion of agricultural land under the guidelines of the Revenue and Disaster Management Department. The Revenue Inspector was required to process the file and submit a field inquiry report to the competent authority in connection with the mutation case.

Despite repeated requests from the applicant, Behera allegedly did not initiate the process and demanded a bribe of ₹6,000 to proceed with the application and facilitate the issuance of a Record of Rights (RoR) for homestead land. When the complainant expressed his inability to pay the amount, the accused allegedly reduced the demand to ₹3,000.

Aggrieved by the demand, the applicant approached Odisha Vigilance. Acting on the complaint, a Vigilance team laid a trap and caught Behera while he was allegedly accepting ₹3,000 from the complainant on Tuesday. The entire bribe amount was recovered from his possession and seized.

Following the trap, simultaneous searches were launched at two locations linked to the accused to investigate possible possession of assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.

In this connection, Sambalpur Vigilance Division Police Station Case No. 19/2026 has been registered under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018. Further investigation into the case is underway, Vigilance officials said.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Monalisa Panda