Farm officials jailed for fund misuse

MANGALORE : In a rare case wherein government officials were punished by the court for irregularities, the Belthangady court has recently sentenced three agricultural officers to three years of imprisonment apart from imposing a penalty of Rs 2000 for misappropriating government funds meant for programme implementation. The three officials who had forwarded a proposal for a vented dam in Uruvalu village in the year 1992-93,after securing funds for the same from the government, had created fake records to prove that the project was implemented, though in reality nothing like that had happened. The officers, it is learnt had misused funds amounting to Rs 49,827 in the name of the project.