The Public Works department in Auraiya has three divisions- Prantiya Khand, Nirman Khand- 2 and Nirman Khand-Dibiyapur. Though Gupta was the executive engineer of the Prantiya Khand unit, he was the reporting authority to the state government about the progress made in projects under all the three divisions.

Major areas of Prantiya Khand come under the Auraiya Assembly constituency, represented by BSP legislator Shekhar Tewari, who is accused of Gupta’s murder.

“Gupta was heading all the projects under the Prantiya Khand division. He was also the nodal officer for projects under the two other divisions,” a junior engineer in Auraiya said.

PWD employees, who participated in the condolence meeting on Friday, said the deceased was a straightforward officer. “This was his second posting in Auraiya. In 2006, he was posted here for only ten days. He was known as a quality conscious officer,” a junior engineer said.

According to sources in Auraiya’s Chief Development Office, the PWD handles an important project of the BSP government — Dr Ambedkar Gram Sabha Vikas Yojana.

“Under the scheme, the PWD is given the task of constructing and maintaining link roads in various gram sabhas in Ambedkar villages. The department has been asked to construct a 114-km stretch of road in Auraiya,” a source said.

“In Prantiya Khand, nearly 57 km roads at a cost of Rs 9 crore are to be constructed,” the source said.

The major road projects in Prantiya Khand include construction of link roads in Nandgaon gram sabha and Badua gram sabha under the Auraiya Assembly seat. “The estimated cost of the link road in Nandgaon is more than 2.5 crore and nearly Rs 2 crore in Badua,” he added.

The villages under the category of Ambedkar village in Auraiya Assembly constituency are Madhuapur, Basundhara, Kewatara, Kakrahi, Saudhemau, Parsu, Babina, Badua and Nandgaon.

The PWD also handles projects sanctioned by the state government under the Zila Yojana (district plan). “Under this scheme, the government has approved nearly Rs 1 crore for construction of roads in rural areas and about Rs 2 crore for approach roads in the district, besides Rs 5 crore for repair of government houses under the Pulled House Scheme in the financial year 2008-09,” said the source.