Vijayawada: The AP Anti-Corruption Bureau on Monday raided houses of two senior officials in the town planning department and unearthed properties worth Rs 150 crore in market value.
The two officials were director, town and country planning, Golla Venkata Raghu, 59, and junior technical officer in the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation, Nalluri Venkata Siva Prasad, 53.
ACB officials were astonished at the number of properties across the two states that they say belonged to the two officials. ACB Director-General R.P Thakur said that the two officials who came from middle-class families had grown to be millionaires in a short time.
He said Raghu had strong links with builders; he himself had grown as a builder with companies in the names of proxies.
ACB suspects builders, realtors nexus
He had the support of Prasad and his wife Gayathri as all three had once worked together in the town planning wing of the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation.
“We have verified their properties from 2007-08. They were doubled and doubled again within years. Prasad, a resident of Gundala, who had just one house in 1992, has Rs 70 crore worth of properties. We were shocked to see the huge gold ornaments made of two-three kilograms of gold and huge diamonds,” Mr Thakur told the media.
The search of Shiva Prasad's residence in Gannavaram started at 6 am on Monday. Gold and diamond jewellery worth Rs 4 crore and Rs 5 crore in promissory notes without details were found. Documents pertaining to lands and properties worth Rs 40 crore, which included an air-conditioned convention centre being constructed at Gann-avaram, were also seized.
