Madhya Pradesh officials remove an entire village from govt records to benefit builders

At a time when the Madhya Pradesh government is facing a lot of flak due to the mysterious deaths of the people linked to the infamous Vyapam scam,  another scam seems to have hit the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government. [caption id=“attachment_2352268” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] In one of the most outrageous instances of corruption, which shows the extent to which government officials can go to for personal benefits, an RTI reply has revealed that an entire village went ‘missing’ from government land records and maps in Madhya Pradesh. RTI activist Rajendra K Gupta noticed that the village of Palia Haider in the Hatod block of Indore district went missing from the government records, according to The Times of India. The RTI reply, on the missing village of around 400 houses, revealed that officials of the registrar office in Indore had removed Palia Haider from the land records just before the revision of guideline rate for 2014-15 to ensure that the rate did not rise significantly. The report added that this was done to benefit a few builders. The RTI application by Gupta sent the government officials into damage control mode as the divisional commissioner ordered an inquiry. You can read the entire TOI report here.