Income Tax dept raids at MEIL

Hyderabad: The income tax department authorities on Friday carried out raids at multiple offices of noted industrialist and contractor Krishna Reddy’s Mega Engineering Infrastructure Limited (MEIL) in Hyderabad and other cities.

Reacting to the I-T raids, an official of MEIL Ltd, on condition of anonymity, said that the I-T department was inspecting their offices on Friday. It was a routine inspection and it was not a raid or search, he said.

Sources disclosed that the I-T authorities suspect “malfunctioning” in the accounts of MEIL.

Sources in the I-T department revealed that during the searches they have found some documents and valuables and the process of the assessment was underway and the searches will likely continue on Saturday.

MEIL is one of the major infrastructure service providers in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. MEIL director Krishna Reddy (popularly known as ‘Megha’), and Mr Pamireddy Pichhi Reddy, are close associates of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.

Sources in the I-T department disclosed that an 18-member team from Delhi conducted the searches at the residences and guest houses of the company among others in 15 locations in Hyderabad and in the company's properties in Delhi and Mumbai, Varanasi, Jaipur, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneshwar and Bengaluru simultaneously.

MEIL was awarded the contract for the construction of the Kaleswaram Project, one of the world's largest lift irrigation projects. The company also constructed the  Pattiseema irrigation project in record time in Andhra Pradesh.

MEIL also has large power projects in Jharkhand, Mahara-shtra, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. MEIL has built the Khargone lift irrigation project in Madhya Pradesh.

The MEIL Group comprises 12 companies working in the fields of power generation, transmission, irrigation, infrastructure development and transportation. The turnover in 2017-18 was `20,000 crore and the company is expanding in the area of railways, airports and ports.