Former chief secretary Somesh Kumar’s wife Dr Gyanmudra purchased 25 acres in the vicinity of the proposed Hyderabad Pharma City at Yacharam on the city outskirts for just Rs 2.5 lakh per acre.
The sale transaction happened in the beginning of 2018, nearly two-and-a-half years after the state government announced Pharma City that resulted in land prices shooting up.
Interestingly, local farmers, who lost their land to Pharma City, demanded the government to pay compensation on par with the prevailing open market value of Rs 25 lakh per acre. Revenue officials, however, settled the compensation between Rs 9 to Rs 12 lakh per acre. The registration documents available with Deccan Chronicle revealed that Gyanmudra purchased 10 acres in Survey No 249/AA at Kothapally village of Yacharam mandal in Ranga Reddy district on January 29, 2018.
The document was registered in the Ibrahimpatnam Sub Registrar Office. She purchased another eight acres on February 5, 2018, in the same survey number through registered document 6257/2018 from three sellers paying a sale consideration of Rs 20 lakh. In the third transaction, sale deed 1478/2018 was executed in December 2017 with the date column left vacant but the document mentioned that payment of Rs 18,65,750 was made on January 22, 2018.
Following the Anti-Corruption Bureau raids on Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Rera) secretary Shiva Balakrishna, reports emerged that the Anti-Corruption Bureau chanced upon inputs on the purchase of property by the former Chief Secretary's family on city outskirts for Rs 2.5 lakh per acre.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau has also been probing into land transactions by a few senior IAS officials who held key posts in the municipal administration and urban development department. Responding to news reports, Somesh Kumar said he sold his property in Prashasan Nagar and purchased the land at Kothapalli. He also said that the government was duly informed of the transaction as part of furnishing property details to the authorities concerned.
