Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Jan 23: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will soon have a zonal office here to deal with cases of money laundering in the state, Rajan S Katoch, director of the Central agency said here Friday.
“We are mulling to open a zonal office. An advertisement for recruitment of a Joint Director (JD) has already been published in newspapers. Candidates will be shortlisted for the post after scrutiny of the applications,” Katoch said while briefing the media after the inauguration of a two-day conference of Enforcement Directorate (ED) here Friday to discuss ‘internal’ matters of the agency.
At the moment the agency has 15 zonal offices in the country.
The director of the Central agency in a candid confession also said they are short of manpower. “We are short of manpower to deal with a large number of cases. Now, we have only one-third of the sanctioned manpower. It would take around two to three years to post all vacant posts,” he added.
Katoch informed newsmen recently a cyber forensic laboratory was inaugurated at the agency’s headquarter in New Delhi. “The technology can recover data from electronic chips and gadgets,” he said.
The conference, chaired by Katoch and the agency’s joint director Himanshu Lal, was attended by over 20 top officials.
The meeting organised at Hotel Mayfair began at 10:30am. At lunchtime, a few ED officials came out of the hotel for a while.
An official told Orissa POST the meeting was organised to discuss the agency’s ‘internal matters’. He rebuffed claims that top ED officials were looking into the ongoing investigation into the multi-crore chit fund scam.
Another ED official said the meeting was discussing matters like recruitments, transport and budget.
