Hyderabad: The war declared by Andhra Pradesh state government against corruption among the government employees and officials has started yielding big results.
In the biggest operation yet the Anti-Corruption Bureau has carried out raids at 23 places across the state and two places in neighbouring states of Telangana and Maharashtra belonging to a top bureaucrat and recovered assets of more than Rs5 billion.
The ACB sleuths have arrested the director of town and country planning, Andhra Pradesh Golla Venkat Raghurami Reddy, and his cousin, a junior technical officer in Engineering section of municipal administration department at Vijayawada.
ACB Director Genera R P Thakur told the media that both the officials have been arrested and search operations were still continuing.
“We have booked Raghurami Reddy under sections of Prevention of corruption act”, he said.
“The bank lockers belonging to Reddy were yet to be opened. Only then we will be able to estimate his wealth”, he added.
The simultaneous raids were carried out on Monday and Tuesday at Visakhapatanam, Nangalagiri, Vijayawada, Hyderabad, Chittoor and Shirdi in Maharashtra.
The assets recovered from different places include Rs5 million in cash, 11 kgs of gold ornaments apart from diamonds and silver ornaments. Part of the treasure was hidden in a washing machine in the house of Sivaprasad who acted as a conduit of Raghurami Reddy.
Investigators caught up with Raghurami Reddy when he was to retire on Wednesday. He had even planned a farewell party to many of his relatives and associates at a resort out of the country and booked the air tickets for them, the ACB officials probing the case said.
Till 2009 he had worked as Chief City planner in Hyderabad, and after the bifurcation of the state he moved to Andhra Pradesh.
As he had the powers to issue permission for building, ACB officials said he misused his power and indulged in corrupt practices.
Apart from his own name, he had the properties, including houses and land in the name of his wife, children and other relative as well as associates.
His other assets include a hotel in the famous pilgrim town of Shirdi called Sai Suraj Kink, Rs6 million in bank accounts, two residential plots in Satyaveedu, Chittoor district, prime land in Mangalgiri which is part of the upcoming new state capital Amaravati and whopping 300 acres of land near Vijayawada airport.
On Tuesday both the arrested officials were produced before court which remanded them to judicial custody.
This is second such major operation by the ACB in Andhra Pradesh this year. Earlier in June the ACB had raided several places belonging to the Engineer in Chief of Public Health in Visakhapatanam Municipal Corporation Pamu Panduranga Rao and seized assets, including residential and commercial buildings, lands, jewellery at Vizag, Vijaywada, Hyderabad, Krishna, Guntur and West Godavari districts. The market value of these assets was also estimated to be Rs5 billion.
