CBI to grill Vanpic officials

GUNTUR: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is hot on the trail of Rs 1,000 crore, which went unaccounted from the Vadarevu and Nizampatnam Ports Industrial Corridor (Vanpic) land deals in Guntur and Prakasam districts. Sources said CBI has decided to grill the top brass of Vanpic project, including MD Nimmagadda Prasad, on the actual amount spent on land acquisition after its field team, which is touring Guntur district, returns to the state capital.
The CBI team was also in for a shock when it found that all the transactions of Vanpic were made in cash. Sources said the CBI is likely to request the income tax department to probe the cash transactions of Vanpic promoters. While the promoters of Vanpic said they spent Rs 1,300 crore for acquiring 26,000 acres, the land oustees told the CBI officials that only Rs 260 crore was disbursed to them.
Shockingly, there are no records or documents on the missing Rs 1,040 crore that disappeared from the original transaction. "It is a huge amount and the money trail could nail the original beneficiaries," said a senior revenue official, who is coordinating with CBI and revenue teams. Almost every land owner, who surrendered his/her land to the Vanpic promoters, stated before the CBI sleuths that they were coerced to hand over the pattas after signing on blank papers.
Analysing the transactions, a chartered accountant on condition of anonymity told TOI that there were several reasons for keeping the records pertaining to the land deal in the dark. While one reason could be payment of huge kickbacks to the political masters, another could be to escalate the project cost four to five times to secure bank loans, he said.
"One thing has emerged clear during the searches. The company had paid the amount (approximately Rs 260 crore) in cash, which indicates that it could be black money," an official reasoned. He said no company would prefer to handle huge transactions in liquid cash. "They seem to have disbursed cash with a deliberate intent to manipulate the records as they have taken the signatures of the oustees on blank papers," he stated.
Rumours were rife that then ministers Balineni Srinivasa Reddy and Mopidevi Venkata Ramana had worked overtime at the behest of late CM YSR to see that all the transactions were effected without any hitch.
Curiously, several field officers, village revenue officers, mandal revenue inspectors and tehsildars involved in the land acquisition, were over-enthusiastic in pressurising the owners to surrender their land holdings. "Some officials had even threatened the victims that their pattas could be cancelled as they were all DK pattas (given to landless poor) and helped the private company promoters in taking control of the massive stretch of land on the coast," sources said.