Bhubaneswar, April 17 -- A draft audit report from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on the sale of land belonging to members of the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) communities in Odisha has found that in one-third of the cases, sub-collectors allowed the sale of land on medical emergency grounds even as the state government ran a state-sponsored health insurance scheme.

The audit, covering the period from 2018 to 2023, found that revenue officials in three sub-divisions-Sonepur, Birmaharajpur, and Kendrapara-systematically violated legal safeguards designed to protect marginalised landowners from exploitation. HT has reviewed the draft report.

Under Section 22(1) of the Odisha Land Reforms (OLR) Act, 1960, land own...