Raids net 11 kg of gold from Andhra Pradesh babu's house

VIJAYAWADA: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) conducted raids at various places in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on Monday and caught two 'big fishes' having massive disproportionate assets worth several crores. ACB sleuths stumbled upon 11 kg of gold and diamond-studded jewellery from the house of one of the accused officer, Golla Venkata Raghu, who is working as director of town and country planning (DTPC), Andhra Pradesh.

The accused official even owns a lodge in the temple town of Shirdi. In 2009, he had worked in GHMC as chief city planner in Hyderabad and is believed to have resorted to corrup tion in sanctioning permission for buildings.

The other accused official has been identified as Nalluri Venkata Siva Prasad (53), a junior technical officer in the engineering section in Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC). Under the orders of RP Thakur, director-general, ACB, the sleuths conducted simultaneous raids at the main accused officer's house and 23 other places, including properties owned by both the accused officers, their family members and benamis' residences. In Siva Prasad's case, the Central Investigation Unit (CIU) reached his house at Gannavaram at 6am and conducted the searches. Soon, piles of documents and kilos of gold and diamond jewellery began tumbling out.

ACB sources told TOI that the link between the two accused officers is that Raghu and Siva Prasad and his wife Chintamaneni Gayathri, who is an assistant engineer, became close family friends when working together in Vijayawada Municipal Corporation in 2003.

Raghu established five companies in the name of his mother-in-law and another benami Subba Rao. Subsequently , all the companies were transferred in the name of Gayathri.Majority of the properties were under her name.

Ironically, Gayathri (45) co mes from a poor farmer background from Morampudi village. ACB officials said that she joined as a junior assistant in VMC on compassionate grounds in 1992 after her mother, who was a Hindi pandit, passed away .

Siva Prasad, native of Gunadala in Vijayawada, completed his qualification in ITI and joined as NMR work inspector in VMC in 1984. His service was regularised in 1991 and 14 years later, he was promoted as junior technical officer.

Raghu entered government service as assistant director in the department of town & country planning and worked in places like Anantapur, Nellore and Rajahmundry . In 2004, he was promoted as joint director and transferred as chief city planner in Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC). In January 2009, he was promoted as additional director and worked here. In November that year, he was transferred to GHMC and worked as chief city planner and was promoted as director. ACB said that it was during this tenure he managed to earn most of ill-gotten wealth. After bifurcation, he was posted as director of town and country planning of Andhra Pradesh.

ACB officials suspect that both officials must have received kickbacks for doing official favours for companies trying to get government tenders. They also did not rule out misappropriation of government funds and said the matter needs to be investigated. As of now ACB sleuths filed two disproportionate assets case against Siva Prasad and Raghu. Both of them have been arrested and will soon be produced before the ACB court in Vijayawada for judicial remand.