Vijayawada town-planning officer amassed 20 Cr illegal assets: ACB

By Newsmeter Network  Published on  6 Nov 2019 12:50 PM GMT
Vijayawada town-planning officer amassed 20 Cr illegal assets: ACB

VISAKHAPATNAM: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths on Wednesday found over Rs 20 crore of illegal assets (movable and immovable properties) belonging to Balagouni Murali Goud, Town Planning Officer of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation.

The ACB sleuths raided Murali’s house alongside his relatives’ in four cities — Tirupathi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Vijayawada.

ACB officials arrested Murali for possessing disproportionate assets over and above his known sources of income. They seized illegal assets including cash, gold, land holdings, houses, and few others estimated to be around Rs 1.38 crore as per the registration value (document value). However, it would easily be more than Rs 20 crore as per market rates.

Director-General of ACB, Kumar Vishwajeet, said that they seized documents of the illegal assets of Murali. ACB officials found that Murali constructed a house at Nandyal of Kurnool district in 2004. Murali also purchased a plot at Mamidalapadu in Kurnool.

Murali constructed a house (G+4+Pent House) at Kukatpally in Hyderabad of Telangana in his wife Bhanu Rekha’s name. Murali also purchased two house sites in his Bhanu’s name at Koheda in Ranga Reddy district of Telangana and Kalluru village near Tirupathi. The tainted officer also purchased land at Kalva village in Kurnool in 2003 and 2015. He also invested Rs 10 lakh in Rural Electrification Corporation, New Delhi through bonds.

Apart from immovable assets, officials found gold ornaments weighing about 250 grammes worth Rs 8 lakh, one kg silver articles worth Rs 30,000, liquid cash of Rs 14.5 lakh, bank balance of Rs 20 lakh, one car, and three bikes.

Murali Rao had joined as a Town Planning Building Overseer in 1993, and he worked at Municipalities of Yemmiganur, Nandyal and CRDA, Vijayawada. He worked as an Assistant City Planner at Municipal Corporation of Tirupathi and presently, he is working as Town Planning Officer, Vijayawada Municipal Corporation.

ACB officials said that Murali amassed most of the illegal assets between 2003 and 2005 in the form of commissions from contractors and approval for various constructions.

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