M Vekaiah Naidu, NDA’s Vice-Presidential candidate. (FILE)
TOP TELANGANA officials on Monday said there were no irregularities in exemption given to the NGO run by NDA’s Vice President candidate M Venkaiah Naidu’s daughter Deepa Venkat from paying civic charges for the NGO’s building, and the order placed with a company owned by Naidu’s son Harshavardhan in buying 350 Toyota Innova vehicles for the state police.
This comes on a day Congress leader Jairam Ramesh indicated that the state government had kept “secret” the order giving exemption to Deepa Venkat’s NGO Swarna Bharat Trust’s Hyderabad branch, at Muchintal village on outskirts of Hyderabad, from paying charges amounting to more than Rs 2 crore.
Ramesh also claimed that the state government placed the order to buy vehicles from Harsha Toyota, owned by Harshavardhan Naidu, “in contravention of rules, and without even floating a tender”. According to officials, Deepa Venkat had formally written in March, stating that her NGO would pay processing charges, development charges for built-up area and external development charges amounting to Rs 26 lakh for the building, and requested waiver of all other charges.
Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) Commissioner T Chiranjeevulu forwarded the letter to Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) Department. On June 20, the department granted the exemption to Swarna Bharat Trust along with four other NGOs. HMDA subsequently waived over Rs 2.20 crore — Rs 2,20,76,922 of total Rs 2.46 crore charges, including developmental charges, layout charges and open space charges.
Refuting allegations of irregularities, MA&UD Secretary Navin Mittal said 17 other NGOs were also granted exemptions. “As Swarna Bharat Trust is a non-profit organisation, and the buildings proposed by them are for skill development, training and provision of healthcare for the needy, the government issued exemption from payment of certain fees and charges to encourage them in doing social service.”
In August 2014, the TRS government in the new state issued orders to buy 1,400 four-wheel police vehicles. By March 2015, 694 Toyota Innovas, 426 Tata Sumos, and 260 Mahindra Boleros had been bought for Rs 168 crore. Of 700 Innovas bought from Toyota Motors directly, 350 were supplied by Harsha Toyota. Another 350 were supplied by Radhakrishna Toyota, the other dealer in Hyderabad.
“We purchased 350 vehicles as per DGS&D (the central purchase organisation of Union government) rate contract and another 350 vehicles through tender process,” DIG (Provisions and Logistics) Sanjay Kumar Jain said. “The order for the first batch was placed with Toyota Motors directly…. Toyota Motors supplied the Innovas through Harsha Toyota.”
The second batch of 350 were “bought through tender process and the order was given to Toyota Motors directly, which supplied the vehicles through Radhakrishna Motors.” These, he said, are the only Toyota dealers in Hyderabad.
Director General of Police Anurag Sharma, part of the police team that zeroed in on the three MUV models, said, “I emphasise that they were purchased as per DGS&D rate contract fixed by the Government of India. Those vehicle models which were not under DGS&D rate contract were purchased through open tender system on our e-procurement platform…. The claim that purchases were made without following any procedures is absolutely false.”
