Real estate boom increases graft in Andhra Pradesh

Visakhapatnam: The real-estate boom that has seen huge transactions made in property purchases with agricultural land, wherever possible, being converted for non-agricultural use in Bheemili and Madhurawada region, has resulted in a dangerous spurt in corrupt dealings.

The revenue and registration departments in Vizag City seem to be flooded with maximum number of corruption cases. From Bheemili region, seven officials have been arrested by the anti-corruption bureau (ACB) over the past one year. Compared to other parts of the city, there is a significant jump in the number of corruption cases in Bheemili and Madhurawada regions.

A raid at the house of Bheemili tahsildar B.T.V. Rama Rao on Wednesday by the ACB highlighted the level corruption has reached in the revenue and registration departments.

A senior officer from the ACB said that in the last one year, six officials of revenue and registration departments in Bheemili region were arrested by ACB on charges of corruption and amassing of illegal assets. The arrests followed surprise raids and traps laid for suspects in the departments.

In January, revenue inspector of Bheemili G. Srinivas and his assistant S. Apparao were arrested for demanding and accepting '25,000 from a farmer, K. Rajendra Prasad, for conversion of his agricultural land measuring 50 cents for non-agricultural purpose.

The ACB teams from Central Investigation Unit (CIU) unearthed around '3 crore (the market value is estimated to be more than Rs 30 crore) in disproportionate assets amassed by sub-registrar of Bheemili, Billa Sanjeevaiah, who had worked as the sub-registrar of Madhura-wda in Vizag city also.

“We have established the nexus between the sub-registrar of Madhurawada registration office N. Anand Kumar and two rowdy-sheeters (land grabbers, P. Venkata Rao and P. Nanaji) from Vizag city and noted the role of the trio in several land grabbing cases under Madhurawada zone in the city. Our raids on Kumar’s house revealed that he had amassed over Rs 20 crore in illegal assets. With the support of the rowdy-sheeters, he misused his powers for hefty bribe,” ACB said.

“We have been receiving several calls regarding corruption in the revenue and registration offices in Bheemili and Madhurawada regions. On concrete information we lay traps and conduct surprise raids to nab the corrupt officials,” said DSP of ACB (Visakha Urban) K. Ramakrishna Prasad.

The staff of registration and revenue departments has been demanding bribes for speeding up the registration process, for under-valuing property, issue of title deeds,” Mr Prasad added.