Alleged Scam In Kaleshwaram: Vigilance teams search Irrigation offices in TS

Hyderabad: As a precursor to the proposed judicial probe into the alleged multi-crore scam in the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project, the state government on Tuesday ordered searches by the Vigilance and Enforcement wing in the offices of the irrigation and Kaleshwaram project in Hyderabad.

Around 12 Vigilance teams took up searches at various places and are said to have seized classified documents from the offices and also grilled the officials for information regarding the details of the project planning, execution, expenditure, etc.

Some tension prevailed at Jala Soudha – head office of the Irrigation department when the Vigilance wing and the irrigation officials confronted for a while during the searches.

Each Vigilance team consisting of 12 members gate crashed into the office of Engineer-in-Chief Muralidharan, Kaleshwaram ENC and Kaleshwaram Corporation MD Hariram office first and insisted for the handover of the documents. The officials initially hesitated to give the documents to the Vigilance wing suspecting that some vested interests were involved in the whole episode. After getting permission from Irrigation minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy, the office of the ENC furnished the details of the projects which includes the DPRs, cost escalation, construction quality, etc, to the Vigilance team.

The search teams demanded the Irrigation officials to provide more information about the Medigadda barrage where one of the piers sank recently. One team visited the Divisional Engineering Office in Mahadevpur in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district and seized the documents related to the Medigadda and Kannepalli pumphouses.

Officials said the searches by the Vigilance teams was the initial step of intensifying the probe into irregularities in the Kaleshwaram project. After getting prima facie evidence, the government will order a judicial probe as announced earlier and expose the previous BRS government in the construction of the Rs 1 lakh crore Kaleshwaram project. The Irrigation minister said a letter has already been sent to the High Court Chief Justice seeking a judicial probe into the irregularities by a sitting judge.

ENC Muralidharan said the Irrigation officials were providing every document related to the Medigadda and Kaleshwaram project to the Vigilance team.