According to anti-corruption sleuths, in one case an advertising agency has evaded payment of Rs 230 crore to BBMP
BENGALURU:
The massive ACB raid on Friday, which saw more than 200 sleuths in mufti scouring the BBMP head office, have resulted in the seizure of around 45 files relating to various departments.
The sleuths later shared a two-page press release which has information on the searches conducted at BBMP’s Advertisement, Town Planning, TDR, Engineering, and Revenue departments.
Also Read: ACB raids on BBMP vindicate TheBengaluruLive report on how advertising
The Superintendent of Police of the Anti-Corruption Squad, Bengaluru City Division, the Superintendent of Police, Central Zone, Bengaluru, and Police Superintendents (Central) led the raid and searches at 27 different BBMP offices across 11 locations. The raid was conducted with the help of more than 200 ACB officers.
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The officer and staff in this section have a responsibility to look into bus shelters under the PPP module, advertisement displays on underpasses, and a skywalks agency which owes around Rs 230 crore to BBMP. According to the ACB, the officials have failed to collect the amount from the advertisement agency and allegedly engaged in corruption. BBMP officials and private persons were allegedly involved in corruption with no official procurement of the annual lease rent and advertising amount, and had not paid GST. Further, as per the ACB, no tenders were invited for bus shelters for the last one year and hence caused a loss to the exchequer.
Transfer of Development Rights (TDR):
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.
Also Read: 200 anti-corruption sleuths search 27 offices of BBMP
Town Planning Section:
The officials of BBMP’s Town Planning division and the engineers involved were allegedly involved in corrupt dealings with some private individuals and multi-storeyed building builders. Around 21 files are being examined and prima facie it has been noticed that crores worth of transactions have taken place.
Engineering Division:
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.
Revenue Division:
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 low property taxes were fixed on a few properties to benefit the property 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.
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