VADODARA: Vadodara rural police arrested a former sarpanch who was booked with 12 others, including Dabhoi taluka panchayat officers, for irregularities in the construction of toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission.

Taluka development officer of Dabhoi, Dinesh Tadvi, in his complaints registered with the police said that sarpanch of Dharampuri, Ramesh Tadvi; sarpanch of Kayavarohan village, Ghanshyam Vasava; former sarpanch of Madva village, Gajendrasinh Vajir; former sarpanch of Shanor village, Babu Vasava; block coordinator, Nayana Tadvi; cluster coordinators, Manhar Vankar and Raju Parmar; civil engineers, Maheshwari Solanki and Anjali Chauhan; technical assistant, Rasik Vasava; talati of Dharampuri village, Aarti Panchal; Nagin Harijan; and talati of Kayavarohan village, Mahendra Joshi, were allegedly involved in irregularities and had siphoned off Rs33.36 lakh.

Vajir was arrested by the police on Saturday. The police said the accused were involved in irregularities in the construction of 265 toilets and had produced wrong documents after site inspections. The police said they carried out malpractice in three different ways. The accused used to show existing toilets as newly built toilets, show construction of two toilets instead of one and incomplete toilets as completed one, the police said.

Vadodara district development officer Sourabh Pardhi said the irregularities came to light last year during an inspection by a team of district authorities. “We had also received several complaints from Chanod,” he said. Pardhi ordered a departmental inquiry after which first FIR was registered at Chanod police station on February 22 and three more FIRs at Chanod and Dabhoi police stations on Friday.