
Hyderabad: The Forum for Good Governance (FFGG) here has requested Telangana chief minister to take appropriate action in a corruption pertaining to the Indiramma Housing scheme. The organisation added that in spite of an investigation by the Crime Investigation Department (CID), no action was taken.
Stating the Telangana chief minister to look into the case so that people involved in “misappropriation of thousands of crores are punished”, Forum For Good Governance general secretary Padmanabh Reddy said that the scheme was originally launched under the joint Andhra Pradesh state to provide houses to poor.
“From 2004 to 2014 close to 33.4 lakh houses were sanctioned. Out of which 20.49 lakh houses said to have been completed. On the ground some were completed, some half completed, some not started but payments made. In some cases old already existing houses were shown as Indiramma houses with active connivance of local politicians and payments made,” said the FFGG secretary.
He alleged that “serious irregularities were committed involving officials of Housing department, local politicians and the beneficiaries”, and hence thousands of crores were misappropriated. Stating that after the formation of Telangana, the earlier government had ordered for a CID inquiry (G.O. No. 9, dated 26-7-2014) on the weaker section Housing programme (Indiramma houses) taken up during the years from 2004 to 2014.
“Government further directed the C.I.D. to take required follow up action including prosecution of culprits and recommend departmental action against erring officials. When the state was bifurcated there were lakhs of incomplete houses spread over the length and breadth of Telangana. With the change of Government, the new Government did not take kind to Indiramma houses and stopped funds and they have started their own new programme of double bedroom houses,” said the Forum for Good Governance.
“Out of 12,000 villages in Telangana C.I.D. surveyed just 36 villages. In their inquiry they found that some existing houses were shown freshly constructed and payments made. They requested Government to give assistance of engineers to decide the age of the house. If the C.I.D. is serious of conducting inquiry, from Grama Panchayat Tax records they could have found out the year of construction of house or even local inquiry could have revealed the approximate year of construction,” said Padmanabh Reddy.
He alleged that for “reasons best known to C.I.D. officials, they avoided to conduct inquiry”, and stated that the case file has been “kept in cold storage”.