Balakrishna who was in charge of building permissions at lucrative Mokila areas, illegally amassed crores

Hyderabad: After a lull period, the Telangana Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) booked a top officer who amassed assets worth crores while being in authority. A case of disproportionate assets was registered against Siva Balakrishna (54) planning officer at Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority, Telangana, and former director of HMDA in Hyderabad.

The officer’s residence and 15 other properties were raided for two consecutive days by the ACB who unearthed ill-gotten wealth of Rs 8.26 crores on paper. The total worth of assets might run into crores given the commercial value of assets found.

Cash worth Rs 99 lakhs, gold, silver found

The raids were held at Villa No 25, Aditya Fort View, Secretariat Colony, Puppalagadda, Rajendra Nagar and other locations belonging to family and friends. The investigation found that he acquired assets disproportionate to his known sources of income by allegedly indulging in corrupt practices and dubious income sources during his service.

During the searches, a net cash of Rs 99,60,850, gold ornaments weighing 1,988 grams, and silver ornaments weighing around 6 kg were found in his house and other places raided.

Further, documents relating to movable and immovable properties worth around Rs 5,96,27,495 were also found during searches. The value of the properties found during the searches is worth about Rs 8,26,48,999 (more than Rs 8 crores) as per the government’s evaluation.

The market value of the movable, as well as immovable properties, will be many times higher than the document value. The accused officer was arrested and is being produced before the court hearing ACB cases.

ACB helpline received many complaints against Balakrishna

S Balakrishna, currently serving as secretary to Telangana State Real Estate Regulatory, earlier served as the director of planning for HMDA (Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority). During his term of five years, he was the authority to grant permissions for new buildings running into crores, change of land use, and layout approval in the rapidly growing Greater Hyderabad jurisdiction.

A highly placed source told NewsMeter that while the ACB sleuths, now headed by IPS officer CV Anand, were screening the complaints received on the ACB toll-free number 1960, they found a large number of complaints against Balakrishna.

Known to be excellent at paperwork with expertise over the subject and position, Balakrishna (a non-Groups officer) made it to the top position while only a handful could make it. However, the officer had a dark side of him.

Balakrishna was in charge of building permissions

Balakrishna was the planning head for the entire HMDA area including the booming Kokapet and Mokila, where a price of a single acre can run into Rs 100 crores. Many multi-crore projects including the Sahiti Kruthi Blossom and Sahiti Sudheeksha in Mokila worth crores are under construction.

Going by the unpopular saying, an efficient officer is corrupt and an inefficient officer is out of the system. However, there are a few rare cases.

There is a flood of allegations that Balakrishna while being the director of planning accepted bribes in the form of cash and expensive gifts in return for permissions and approvals for change of land use from agriculture to commercial. The iPhones and watches found during the Anti-Corruption Bureau raid on January 24 and 25 substantiate the claim.

Message to public

Call toll-free number 1064 to report bribe demands by any public servant. The public is also requested to contact the toll-free number 1064 of ACB, Telangana to take action as per law.