Guwahati: Until recently, Dhiman Chakma was celebrated as a quiet inspiration from Tripura, a small-town boy who beat the odds twice to join India’s most elite civil services. Today, he finds himself at the centre of one of Odisha’s most high-profile corruption scandals in recent memory.
Dhiman Chakma, a 2021-batch IAS officer posted as Sub-Collector of Dharamgarh in Odisha’s Kalahandi district, was arrested by the state vigilance department for allegedly accepting a bribe of ₹10 lakh. According to officials, he had demanded ₹20 lakh from a local businessman who ran a stone-crushing unit, threatening action if the money wasn’t paid. The trap was laid, and Chakma was caught allegedly accepting the first installment in cash at his government residence. He reportedly placed the money inside his office drawer, and a chemical test later confirmed the transaction.
A subsequent raid at his residence led to the recovery of ₹47 lakh in unaccounted cash. A case has been filed under the Prevention of Corruption Act, and an investigation is ongoing to trace the source of the money and determine whether other officials were involved.
On June 8, Odisha Vigilance, in an official post on X (formerly Twitter), stated, “Today, Sri Dhiman Chakma, IAS (2021 batch), Sub-Collector, Dharamgarh, Kalahandi, has been nabbed while accepting a bribe of ₹10 lakh from a businessman after allegedly threatening to act against his business. A subsequent search at his government residence led to the recovery of ₹47 lakh in cash.”
Chakma’s story had once inspired many. Born in a modest home in Kanchanpur, Tripura, he studied computer science at NIT Agartala and cleared the UPSC Civil Services Examination not once, but twice — first entering the Indian Forest Service in 2019, and then the IAS in 2021 with a higher rank. His rise from the remote northeast to the upper echelons of Indian bureaucracy had made him a role model among aspirants.
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