ACB sleuths continue raids on BBMP offices

Bengaluru: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths continued their raids on several BBMP offices and seized several documents on Wednesday, after irregularities and misappropriation of funds worth hundreds of crores of rupees were unearthed.

ACB's 10 teams officials conducted inspections at various zonal offices, including Yelahanka, Bommanahalli and Mahadevapura in Bengaluru. The search for the files that smack of corruption in the Revenue, Engineering and TDR departments was conducted.

Officials said the decision was made to seek information through a field visit. The ACB conducted raids on the BBMP headquarters and zonal offices last Friday. More than 200 officers of the ACB were part of this investigation. The searches were conducted at the Revenue wing, the head office, zonal offices and Joint Commissioners' offices, including offices of the Advertisement Division, the TDR Division, the Health Department, the Road and Infrastructure Department and the Storm Water Drains wing. The suo motu raids were conducted based on oral complaints received at ACB, said an official. The sleuths have seized TDR-related files belonging to Rampur, Sigahalli, Whitefield and Varanasi village as it has come to their notice that huge corruption has taken place while issuing TDR certificates. More than 200 files belonging to the engineering wing have been examined and some of them have been seized. During the preliminary investigation, it was found that double-billing has been done in a few cases. It was found that BBMP officers and revenue staff have not conducted a proper survey of properties and fixed the taxes. It was also noticed that some properties were assessed for lower taxes to benefit the owners. In one instance, the government's kharab land was also included while issuing a khata to a private person. During the investigation, it was also noticed that property tax was not collected from two malls and a private hospital.

The ACB officials are finding more corruption, as they deepen the investigations. It was found that officials were involved in tax fraud of multiple national companies, sanctioning several bills in the name of a single company, and without doing any work they have raised bills worth Rs 500 crores. On this backdrop ACB officials have continues their raids on BBMP offices.