Lucknow: Two officers have been arrested in a case related to the alleged investment of over Rs 2,600 crore of Uttar Pradesh power employees' provident fund money in scam-hit Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL).

Praveen Kumar Gupta, who was the secretary of the Uttar Pradesh State Power Employees Trust and the Provident Fund Trust of the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation in 2016, and the then director, finance, Sudhanshu Dwivedi were arrested after an FIR was lodged against them at the Hazratganj police station in Lucknow.

The FIR was registered against the officers on the directions of chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday, a government spokesperson said in a statement.

"The chief minister has directed the home department and the Director-General of Police (DGP) to take strong action against the officers for diverting provident fund money into DHFL, a private firm, against the government norms," the spokesperson said.

According to reports, Gupta was the in-charge of the CPF trust and the General Provident Fund (GPF) trust, and he got approval from Dwivedi to divert more than 50% of the provident funds' money to DHFL, as against the guidelines of the Union finance ministry.

The statement further said that the officers were aware that DHFL was not a scheduled commercial bank and was an unsafe private organisation.

Rs 2,631.20 crore of employees' GPF was invested in DHFL out of which the finance company has returned Rs 1185.5 crore. A total of Rs 1491.50 crore of CPF was invested in the company out of which Rs 669.30 crore has been received by the trust. DHFL is yet to return Rs 2267.9 crore (principal amount) of GPF and CPF to the trust, the statement said.

UP minister Shrikant Sharma has said that the government would take strict action against the accused in line with its zero-tolerance policy.  "We will ensure that no harm comes to any employees. All employees are like members of my family," he said.