Andhra Pradesh Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has netted a top-ranking official of the Roads and Buildings Department as it claimed to have unearthed assets worth over Rs 11 crore (registered value only) disproportionate to his known sources of income.
Based on this, Roads and Buildings Department Engineer-in-Chief (Administration) M Gangadharam, has been arrested, a top officer said
Official sources said BJP MLA from Visakhapatnam P Vishnu Kumar Raju acted as a whistleblower and led the ACB to net the official.
Raju was said to have written a letter to Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu pointing to the grossly inflated cost of the Bhimili-Visakhapatnam beach road project and the involvement of Gangadharam.
Based on this, the Chief Minister directed the ACB to investigate the case and that led to the busting of the top R&B official, the sources added.
"ACB sleuths conducted raids over the last three days on the accused officer's properties in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Chittoor, Kadapa and several other places in AP and Telangana," ACB Director General R P Thakur said in a release.
The assets were in the name of Gangadharam, his wife, son, daughter-in-law, daughter and son-in-law and also some benamis (contractors).
The assets included many parcels of land, residential flats, a luxury villa in Hyderabad, over two kilos of gold, investments in various companies, cars, Rs 45 lakh in cash and Rs 21 lakh in bank balance, the ACB release said.
"The actual market value of the assets is much more," Thakur noted.
Official sources said the total value of the assets could be well over Rs 100 crore.
Gangadharam began his career as a deputy executive engineer and worked in several parts of AP and rose in ranks to become the Engineer-in-Chief.
The case is under investigation.
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