KANPUR: Tales of files struggling to move from one table to the next in the stupor of government offices are legion. Mohan, a contractual employee at Kanpur’s Vikas Bhawan, took it upon himself to ‘move’ a sackful of them every day. Not out of any sense of duty towards his job or the public, though.
The 45-year-old would take the files, stuffed into a gunny sack, to a scrap dealer in the neighbourhood for a fixed payment of Rs 60 a consignment. The money bought him a quarter bottle of country liquor, and along with it the unrivalled satisfaction of a good night’s sleep. At least until he was found out last week and promptly sacked, reports Faiz Siddiqui.
The pilferage of stacks of files that nobody had missed until then came to light last Friday when officials couldn’t find some pension documents. It transpired that pension records from 2017 to 2022 were missing. After the staff were questioned, someone pointed out that Mohan would diligently take out what he claimed was “scrap” every afternoon. Pension records of 2023 were later recovered from scrap dealer Deepak Jaiswal, who confirmed that Mohan had been selling stacks of papers to him for the past three months. Jaiswal said he sold the sackfuls of paper to a wholesaler based in Beconganj at a small profit. Based on a complaint filed by chief development officer Sudhir Kumar, police registered a case against Mohan.