RTA staff siphoned off Rs 3.75 crore of collected funds, find sleuths

Hyderabad: The vigilance wing of the transport department has found during a preliminary inquiry that Rs 3.75 crore was collected for the re-registration of 1,050 vehicles was misappropriate by personnel of the Bandlaguda Road Transport Authority office.

The inquiry was conducted under the supervision of joint transport commissioner (vigilance) C. Ramesh after the fraud was unearthed in February.

N. Victor, senior assistant administrative officer Giri Babu and junior assistants Phany Kumar and Vasudeva Rao have been suspended. 

Road transport officer (south) P. Puroshotham was transferred to the head office to facilitate investigation. A five-member team headed by road transport officials Ranga Reddy and M. Praveen Rao is checking the files at RTA-Bandlaguda.

Joint commissioner, transport, Panduranga Naik said about 20 persons were shifted out of the office after the scam came to light. 

Initially, the total amount misappropriated was pegged at about Rs 2 crore.

The vigilance probe found that the RTA staff along with a few brokers had brought down the resale value of the vehicles purchased in other states and collected less tax. “It was found that full tax amount was collected from the people while a lower purchase value was shown in the records,” said an official.

“After the preliminary inquiry was done, we issued notices to the employees whose names surfaced in the scam. Based on the explanation given by them, a regular inquiry will be conducted,” said Mr Ramesh.