KalingaTimes Correspondent
Bhubaneswar, July 15: Even as Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has been running his government with the slogan of fighting corruption for more than eight years, an engineer working in the town planning department of the state has been found possessing assets worth over Rs 97 lakh, including more than 3 kg of gold.

Raiding the houses of the accused engineer V. Satyanarayan in Jeypore and Berhampur and checking his bank lockers since Monday, the vigilance department sleuths have found 3.008 kg gold and 13 kg of silver.

Satyanarayan, who hails from Berhampur, is presently working as Assistant Executive Engineer in Town Planning Department at Jeypore in Koraput district.

Satyanarayan earlier worked as an engineer in Berhampur Municipality and also in Berhampur Development Authority.

As the raids on the houses of Satyanarayan and his relatives was in progress, by Tuesday evening the vigilance sleuths had unearthed a three-storeyed building (worth Rs 23 lakh) and two-storeyed building (worth Rs 11.50 lakh) in Berhampur.

Besides, the vigilance department had also traced a homestead plot at Khandagiri in Bhubaneswar (worth Rs 2.5 lakh), cash Rs 8.16 lakh, household articles worth Rs 3 lakh, a Maruti 800 car, a Bajaj Caliber motorcycle, a scooty (worth Rs 2 lakh), gold ornaments weighing 3.008 kg worth Rs 40.86 lakh, silver weighing 13.112 kg worth Rs 4.59 lakh, and deposit of Rs 1.5 lakh for purchase of homestead land at Hyderabad.

It may be recalled that the vigilance department had raided the houses of Girija Rath, a police officer, last month. It was found that the corrupt official was possession of properties worth over Rs 2 crore.