Forester suspended for ticketing scam in Kovai Courtallam, ₹35 lakh recovered

The Forester, along with a former employee, had used a second ticketing machine to allot tickets to the public and had pocketed the money; the scam came to light when officials looked into reasons behind low revenues despite high footfalls

The Forest Department has placed a forester under suspension, on charges of allegedly siphoning off several lakh rupees for about a year, by issuing fake entry tickets to visitors at the Kovai Courtallam waterfalls, in Coimbatore district.

The Department on Friday, suspended Rajesh Kumar, who had been working as forester in the Boluvampatti forest range of Coimbatore Forest Division for one and a half years, and recovered ₹35 lakh of the defrauded amount from him.

Kumar is alleged to have executed the scam under T. Saravanan, a former forest range officer of the Boluvampatti forest range. The Department suspects that Saravanan would received a higher share of the gains from the scam. 

Conservator of Forests S. Ramasubramanian said Saravanan currently works under the Madurai circle. Top officials of the Department and the Madurai circle have been alerted about the incident.

According to the official, the ranger and forester used an additional billing machine to issue tickets, cash collected from which went into their pockets. The scam came to light after senior officials checked the reasons for low revenue from the tourism spot which had a high footfall of visitors.

Though the extra machine was seized by senior officials based on a suspicion of fraudulent activities, the duo followed another trick to siphon off ticketing revenue. “The machine prints a duplicate when a ticket is generated. The accused gave duplicates of tickets generated in the forenoon to visitors who came in the afternoon,” said Mr. Ramasubramanian. A ticket costs ₹60.

Kumar, a graduate in computer engineering, continued the fraud even after Saravanan was transferred from the Boluvampatti forest range to Madurai.