Andhra revenue official found in possession of Rs 5-crore assets

A revenue official in Andhra Pradesh was today found in possession of alleged illegal assets worth more than Rs 5 crore, including Rs 41 lakh in new currency notes, Anti-Corruption Bureau said today.

Raids on the residential premises of B T V Rama Rao, a Tehsildar posted at Bheemili in the district, and his relatives in different cities led to the seizure of Rs 41 lakh in new notes, 1 kg gold and documents of properties valued at Rs 3.5 crore, among others, ACB officials said.

In total, the seized movable and immovable assets are valued at more than Rs 5 crore, they said.
“We have decided to register a case against the tainted Tehsildar,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police-ACB (Visakhapatnam Urban) K Rama Krishna Prasad.

The Tehsildar maintained a full-fledged office in the basement of his house at Akkayyapalem area here to carry out his illegal operations, the ACB officials said. The ACB found over 220 pattadar passbooks (land record documents) in his office during the raid which he had kept for disbursement to their owners in exchange of bribes, they said.

Rao, a native of Ravikamatam area in the district, joined the revenue department as a steno in 1986 and was elevated to the post of Deputy Tehsildar in 2011 and became Tehsildar in 2015. The ACB found Rao manipulated the official website of the department to make money illegally. Rao used to tamper the website and change the name of the owner to trouble the genuine owner. He then demanded bribes from the real owner to rectify the change, Prasad said.

“So far we have found few such cases and investigation is on in this regard.” His real estate properties included a three-storey building at Akkayyapalem, a house at Vepagunta, a plot at Vepagunta, two apartments in Narasimhanagar, commercial space in Kapparada and two apartments in the names of his two sons- in-law in Hyderabad.