A Dossier on Visakhapatnam
Three more arrested in Saukaryam fraud case. Total arrests in the case so far reaches to 13.
GVMC Office, June 27, 2011
Visakhapatnam Police made more progress in the Saukaryam fraud case of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation by arresting three more. The three are identified as Buddharaju Ravi Varma, Pinisetti Rambabu and Battula Jagannadham. With these three arrests, the total number of arrests in the case reached to 13.
Buddharaju Ravi Varma is an MCA graduate and worked as the system administrator at the Information Technology Department of GVMC. He is alleged to have provided the software to another already arrested accused B S Srinivasa Rao and helped in the manipulation of computers. Varma is reported to have used his share of funds towards settling a compensation claim by his wife to a tune of Rs. 4.5 lakhs, has spent Rs. 70,000 while the police recovered Rs. 15,000 from his house.
Pinisetti Rambabu hails from One Town Area and used to work as an AutoCAD operator with the UGD section at GVMC during 2007. He used to collect tax from assesses and instead issue bank cheques in his name which later used to get bounced. B S Srinivasa Rao used to give him face receipts which are in turn given to the assesses. Rambabu got his share of Rs. 2 lakhs.
Battula Jagannadham of Prasanthinagar area of Pendurthy worked as an assistant to the bill collector Pyla Vasudeva Rao. Jagannadham used to issue fake receipts to the owners. He got Rs. 2 lakhs as his share. The funds from his share are used by his son in purchasing a house. He also used to issue fake date of birth and death receipts.
The Saukaryam scam came to light back at the end of May 2011 when the police arrested three GVMC employees including a computer operator. The scam amount is believed to be at Rs. 50 lakhs. GVMC has temporarily suspended the Saukaryam operations since them and advice the citizens to pay their taxes at the eSeva counters spread across the city. Meanwhile, both GVMC and Police department began investigation into the case. IT officials from Hyderabad are called upon to find the breaches in the software and network that allowed the scam to happen. By then the extent of scam rose to Rs. 1.8 crores. More progress happened with few arrested made in mid-June 2011.
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