Kalyan: PWD engineer demands Rs 5 lakh bribe from land owner affected in Mumbai-Vadodara highway project, held

THANE: The Thane Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) arrested Avinash Bhanushali (57), an engineer of the Public Works Department (PWD) for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 5 lakh.
He demanded the bribe to carry out the valuation of a property of the complainant which was getting affected due to the Mumbai-Vadodara Expressway project.
The ACB has found that Bhanushali first took a bribe of Rs 4 lakh from the complainant on September 9.But on Monday, when he was taking the remaining cash amount of Rs 1 lakh at the PWD office in Kalyan, the ACB team nabbed him red-handed.
As per ACB officials, the PWD is carrying out a survey of land and properties getting affected due to the Mumbai-Vadodara highway project.
The arrest of the PWD engineer for demanding a bribe from the project-affected person has raised questions about the distribution of compensation money to those affected due to the project, especially in the Kalyan taluka of Thane district.
Earlier, a local Shiv Sena local leader named Mayur Patil from Titwala had claimed that some PWD officials were extorting money by giving the compensation amount to someone else instead of giving it to the real affected people living on the land.