3 min readJul 2, 2026 03:01 PM IST
First published on: Jul 2, 2026 at 02:43 PM IST
An official with the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) was tasked with clearing a mound of garbage dumped near Gurgaon’s Kherki Daula Village following complaints from residents.
Soon, photographs of the area looking spick and span, with not a single plastic bag in sight, were uploaded to the grievance portal. Except that the area had never been cleaned. Officials said Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools were used to create a fake photo of a clean-up.
In a similar case, another official used GPS spoofing to fake his attendance.
Cracking down on technology-driven deception, the MCG on Wednesday terminated the services of the two officials, both Assistant Sanitary Inspectors.
Orders issued by MCG Commissioner Pradeep Dahiya outlined “grave misconduct, fraud, dishonesty” and behaviour deemed unbecoming of a person engaged in public service.
The first offender
According to complaint records accessed by The Indian Express, Assistant Sanitary Inspector Waseem was assigned to clear garbage on temple land at Kherki Daula Village.
Instead of executing the assigned work, he uploaded a fabricated ‘after’ image on April 7, which was manipulated to falsely show a completely clean, uniformly paved area.
The order notes that Waseem “edited the original photographs through AI-based tools and uploaded such fabricated photographs on the official grievance portal with the intention of showing false compliance and obtaining closure of the complaint without carrying out the actual field work”.
The official admitted to the forgery during a personal hearing on July 1.
According to the official order, Waseem “deliberately uploaded AI-manipulated photographs on the grievance portal to falsely show that the complaint had been resolved, whereas the complaint remained unattended.”
The second case
In the second case, officials said Assistant Sanitary Inspector Sonu allegedly manipulated the civic body’s digital attendance system. Officials said a field inspection on April 9 found Sonu absent from his duty location, yet he was marked present on the MCG’s Sanitation Monitoring System Portal.
When officials called his phone, he admitted he was at home.
Officials said an internal probe revealed that Sonu had been “using unauthorised third-party applications, including Fly GPS, to spoof his GPS location, thereby bypassing the security features of the official attendance application of the Municipal Corporation and fraudulently marking his attendance while remaining absent from duty”.
The termination order emphasises that he “intentionally created a false digital attendance record to mislead… authorities despite not discharging his official duties”.
Sonu admitted to using the spoofing application during a personal hearing.
Following their respective hearings, authorities said the written explanations furnished by both employees were carefully examined and deemed “wholly unsatisfactory”.
The two men, both contractual employees deployed through the Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam Limited (HKRNL), were relieved from their duties with immediate effect on July 1.
Noting that their continuation in service was “neither desirable nor in the interest of the Municipal Corporation, Gurugram,” the MCG has forwarded copies of the orders to the Chief Executive Officer of HKRNL with a formal request to officially terminate their deployment.
Before AI: A mound of garbage dumped near Gurgaon’s Kherki Daula Village. (Express Photo) 
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