Surat: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Monday arrested a sanitary inspector and a sanitation worker of the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 11,000 from a city resident in exchange for processing a licence to sell firecrackers.The accused were identified as Vipulkumar Jayantkumar Joshi (56), a Class III sanitary inspector posted in ward 37(A) at the Piplod office under the Athwa zone and Shailesh Kishanbhai Solanki (37), a Class IV sanitation worker in the same ward. Both drew Rs 1.37 lakh and Rs 30,000 salary respectively.According to the ACB, the complainant had applied for a licence to sell firecrackers at the ward 37(A) health office in Piplod. He was asked to pay Rs 11,000 to get the licencing process completed. Unwilling to pay the bribe, he approached the ACB and lodged a complaint. Acting on the complaint, the ACB laid a trap on Monday.During the operation, Solanki accepted the bribe amount of Rs 11,000 from the complainant on the instructions of Joshi. The ACB team caught both accused and recovered the entire bribe amount.A case was registered against the two officials under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The trap was led by S D Dhobi, police inspector of the Surat Rural ACB police station under the supervision of R R Chaudhary, assistant director of ACB‘s Surat unit.
