Telangana: Transport babu held with Rs 6 crore

Hyderabad: Property worth nearly Rs 6 crore was unearthed from the residences of Paidipala Ravinder, an administrative officer in transport department, in raids conducts by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Friday. Officials raided his residence in Attapur and the residences of his relatives at various locations across the state. They found that he had purchased properties in the name of his wife and sons to evade suspicion.

According to officials of the ACB, Mr Ravinder joined the irrigation department in 1981 and worked, on a daily-wage basis, at the Sriram Sagar Project site in Karimnagar until 1986, when he was promoted to the position of work inspector.  He was then shifted to the transport department as a junior assistant in 1999. He was promoted to the position of senior assistant in 2008 and became administrative officer in 2013.

A senior official from the ACB said that as an administrative officer at the head office of the transport department, Mr Ravinder had access to all the higher officials in the department. He was involved in almost all the activities of the office, including transfers and the movement of important files, because of which many employees would approach him seeking illegal favours, such as postings in vital locations. “We suspect that he could have earned a lot of money through these illegal favours,” the official said.

During the raids conducted on Friday, officials found documents pertaining to a four-storeyed building in Rajendranagar which is worth Rs 1.35 crore, two buildings in Hanamkonda that are worth over Rs 13.75 lakh, a house plot worth Rs 8.7 lakh, two other plots worth Rs 5.45 lakh, two cars worth Rs12 lakh, two bikes worth Rs 1.51 lakh, one kg of gold jewellery worth Rs 15 lakh, Rs12 lakh in cash, Rs 35 lakh in fixed deposits, Rs 3.15 lakh in bank balances, insurance premiums of Rs 1 lakh, and household articles and electronic gadgets worth Rs 5 lakh. The value of these properties, as per the documents, is Rs 2.61 crore. But their market value is estimated to be nearly Rs 6 crore. Mr Ravinder has been arrested and will be produced before the ACB court.