Indian official suspended for draining Kherkatta Dam to retrieve phone
Millions of gallons of water had to be pumped out of the Kherkatta Dam over the course of three days when Rajesh Biswas Indian Official dropped the Mobile while taking a selfie. The phone was too wet to function when it was eventually discovered.
Mr. Biswas said that it needed to be recovered because it held private Government information, but he has been accused of abusing his authority.
The food inspector’s Samsung phone, which was valued at approximately $1,200 (100,000 rupees), fell into the Kherkatta Dam on Sunday in the Chhattisgarh state of central India.
In a video statement that was cited in Indian media, Mr. Biswas said that after local divers were unsuccessful in finding it, he paid to have a diesel pump brought in.
He said he had received verbal approval from a representative of the government to pour “some water into a nearby canal,” adding that the representative had claimed it “would actually benefit the farmers who would have no water.”
Two million liters (440,000 gallons) of water, or enough to irrigate 600 hectares of agriculture, were reportedly drained by the pump over the course of several days of operation.
When a second official from the water resource department showed up in response to a complaint, he was terminated. He is Suspended pending an investigation. Water is a precious resource that cannot be misused in this way, Kanker district official Priyanka Shukla told The National newspaper.
Mr. Biswas has denied abusing his position and claimed that the water he drained was “not in usable condition” and came from the overflow portion of the dam.
Political Views
Politicians have criticized the officer’s actions, with the national vice-president of the state’s opposition BJP party tweeting: “When people are depending on tankers for water facility in scorching summers, the officer has drained 41 lakh liters which could have been used for irrigation purpose for 1,500 acres of land.”
