Khammam: Misuse of property and nala tax collected by gram panchayats and municipalities is going on unabated in Khammam district. The defraud is mainly by bill collectors, panchayat secretaries and MPDOs in various panchayats and urban bodies.
There have been 20 incidents in the district during the last two years.
According to those in the know, instead of depositing the tax collected into the treasury, panchayat secretaries and MPDOs are parking them in their personal bank accounts. K Ramnaresh, panchayat secretary of Nelakondapalli is a notorious example. He collected ₹31 lakh of property tax over a period and did not deposit the same into the treasury account. Senior officials have started an inquiry into the matter only now.
In Garlapadu village of Bonakal mandal, panchayat secretary P. Madhu diverted into his own account pension of Asasara beneficiary Lavanya from 2017. Inquiries later revealed that when the pension had been sanctioned to her the number of the bank account given was that of Madhu and not Lavanya. Madhu swindled ₹1 lakh this way.
Another two panchayat secretaries Sk. Siddiqui and N. Murali of Singareni gram panchayat had been suspended last year over allegations of misuse of funds. They did not deposit tax collected by them into the village account.
Kamepalli MPDO N. Rajendra Prasad and junior assistant Rayala Karunakar tampered with records of Pandithapuram village and misused its funds. Both got suspended in the matter. Such irregularities have also been found in Khammam Municipal Corporation with an outsourcing employee not depositing collections from Lakaram Tank into the bank account of KMC.
Citizen G Suresh of Khammam suggested that government should encourage online payments to avoid such frauds in tax collections.
