Two BDA workers and four middlemen have been arrested for rigging the online auction of corner housing sites, police said.
Seshadripuram police arrested BDA workers Lokesh Gowda and Sunil, and middlemen Vikram Jain, Manjunath, Pavan and Ramachandra. All of them have been taken into police custody for five days for further questioning. Gowda is on the BDA’s payroll while Sunil is a contract employee.
The arrests were made in six cases on the basis of complaints filed by BDA authorities in the second week of January, a senior police officer said. The number of FIRs registered over the irregularities has risen to 18.
DH was the first to report the irregularities on January 15.
The Bangalore Development Authority had gone for the online auction of corner sites in eight housing layouts: Anjanapura, Arkavathi Layout, Banashankari, HBR Layout, JP Nagar, Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Layout, Nagarabhavi and Sir M Vishveswaraiah Layout. To participate in the auction, bidders had to log in to eproc.karnataka.gov.in, the state government’s public procurement portal. The e-bidding took place between December 8 and 15 and closed between December 23 and 30.
The BDA decided to take the online route to ensure transparency and break the monopoly of middlemen. But corrupt BDA staff and scammers broke into the “foolproof” system by producing fake bank challans and sale deeds.
The scam was unearthed by the BDA’s vigilance squad and special task force. In particular, the auction of sites in HBR Layout and Vishveswaraiah Layout was rigged between 2016 and last year.
BDA authorities haven’t ruled out the possibility of senior officials being involved in the scam. Police are still investigating the case and more arrests may happen.
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