Bandlaguda RTA comes under scanner for fraud by employees

Hyderabad: The Road Transport Authority office at Bandlaguda has come under charges for corruption and irregularities in the execution of their responsibilities.

The city police and the transport department are conducting two separate investigations into the frauds allegedly committed by the RTA staff. 

Administrative Officer, N. Victor, Senior Assistants, Giri Babu and Vasudeva Rao and Junior Assistant, Phany Kumar have been placed under suspension. Additionally, the Road Transport Officer (South), P. Puroshotham has been transferred to the head office to facilitate the investigations. 

A 5-member team headed by RTO Ranga Reddy and M. Praveen Rao is checking the files at the RTA Bandlaguda. The investigation was recommended after reports of a syndicate comprising of the RTA Bandlaguda staff and a few brokers had caused a huge loss to the government by decreeing the purchase value of vehicles. 

According to sources, the staff had collected the full amount for the re-registration of vehicles purchased from other states, but did not make the necessary online entries for the same. The officials and brokers involved had put initials on top of the files as an indicator for the deals, and the staff, allegedly knowing so, made false entries in the official records. It has been estimated that their actions have led to a loss of Rs 2 crores for the government. 

Joint Commissioner (Transport), Mr Panduranga Naik, confirmed that the investigation is still under way and a team continues to examine files pertaining to other transactions. 

Earlier this month, the Commissioner's Task Force had arrested a 5-member gang who had been caught tampering with the chassis numbers of condemned vehicles and selling the same. They had also been obtaining Registration Certificates with help from the staff who did not collect any support documents for the certificates.  The police have seized 15 Royal Enfield 350 CC and 2 Yamaha 350 CC motorcycles, along with 25 RC books from the gang.

During the preliminary investigation the police had found that an agent named Vittal Rao used to give huge amounts of money to the officials at the RTA in Bandlaguda in order to get RCs without any documents or other papers. The RTA staff had issued these to him without doing a physical verification of the vehicles in question. 

The primary accused in the case, Hitesh Patel, had also taken 25 RCs for Royal Enfields and Yamaha motorcycles in advance, with the intention of selling them to prospective buyers who would purchase the vehicles in scrap condition and put together the engine and chassis numbers accordingly with the help of mechanics.  A few months ago, another employee of the RTA Bandlaguda was suspended for issuing fitness certificates to 18 oil tankers without examining the vehicles.