Tainted surveyor operated from Vizag collectorate

Visakhapatnam: Surveyor Inspector GL Ganeswara Rao, who was arrested for tampering the documents of government land and for possession of blank pattadar passbooks, did much of his operation with Visakhapatnam Collectorate as the base.

He had his agents in key sections of the Revenue department and also deployed outsiders and brokers to make all the deals. The tahsildars were always willing to oblige him for a handsome gain. The Special Investigating Team not only caught Visakha Rural Tahsildar Majji Shankar Rao but it has also identified some more tahsildars, who were reportedly involved in the scam.

“We have identified three more tahsildars who involved in the scam and we will be summoning them for questioning after we get adequate information from Ganeswara Rao,’’ said a senior police official.

The most important aspect of the case is diversion of pattadar passbooks from the collectorate. The police found 145 passbooks from the house of Ganeswara Rao’s driver B Srinivasa Rao soon after his arrest. Of them 90 were blank and 55 were filled.

Normally the passbooks have serial numbers and sent to tahsildar offices in batches.The police wonder how he diverted the passbooks and who helped him in procuring them without the knowledge of issuing authorities or recipients.

In addition to the tampering, the Surveyor Inspector and his agents were reportedly making money by clearing some disputed and complicated files. Several ex-servicemen, who were sanctioned land and could not get the passbooks, also approached him. He was solving their problems by getting no objection certificate from the collectorate besides taking away a good chunk of land from them.

According to police, Ganeswara Rao obtained passbooks from some of the ineligible ex-servicemen by collecting good amount of money.“We will know more about him and his deeds when we get his custody from judicial remand on Thursday,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police K Fakirappa.