Rs 540 cr illegally parked in unknown accounts: Minister

The Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department has unearthed illegal parking of money in 101 unknown bank accounts, totalling Rs 540 crore.

This is in addition to the Rs 1,355 crore found deposited in 1,128 unauthorised accounts. Addressing the media in Bengaluru on Wednesday, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister H K Patil said the government would initiate action against the officials concerned “in the next 48 hours”.

The department has zeroed in on five to six officials, including gazetted manager B S Raigeri, against whom action would be initiated. Raigeri is said to have not co-operated with the investigating officers and misinformed them about the illegal accounts.

The funds were deposited in the Syndicate Bank branch on the BWSSB office premises on KG Road in Bengaluru.

With the Punati Sridhar Committee, which probed the matter, having submitted its final report, the government will now initiate action, the minister said.

CID probe

So far, only one official of the deputy secretary rank, Ramakrishna, has been suspended in the case.

It is learnt that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah would order a CID probe against Ramakrishna, the prime accused, who was found to have unauthorisedly deposited Rs 92 crore meant for rural water supply in Andhra Bank, Gandhinagar, in March 2011. By August 2104, the amount had grown to Rs 134 crore with interest.

The Finance department has also appointed a special team headed by Additional Controller of State Accounts, S Shivarudrappa, to conduct transaction auditing of the scam.

The team will study the contractual agreements, whether or not tenders were floated, whether work certificates were issued for the payments made, etc.

Pure drinking water

Patil said the tender process for setting up of 4,000 pure drinking water units would be completed within a week. Of the 4,000, the Co-operation Department has agreed to take up works on 1,500 units.