CBI registers DA case against CSRTI director

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked a second case against director CSRTI (Central Sericulture Research and Training Institute) in Mysuru.

The premier investigative agency has registered an FIR for disproportionate assets against CSRTI director Dr Sivaprasad. Earlier, CBI had booked him for causing loss to the state exchequer by rigging the tender process to procure 5,200 Japanese type rotary mountages and silkworm spinning device.

According to CBI sources, the officer in question, during the period from January 2014 to June 2018, had acquired assets disproportionate to his known sources of income in his name and in the names of his family members. Sivaprasad, who joined Central Silk Board in 1990 as research assistant had resigned in 1997, and joined Andhra Pradesh State Sericultural Research and Development Institute. Subsequently, he was appointed as director Central Silk Board in 2010 and transferred as director CSRTI in Mysuru in 2014.

Sources said that Sivaprasad had started investing and incurring huge expenditure from January 2014. This also coincides with the period when alleged irregularities took place in the purchase of Japanese rotary mountages by CSRTI and its supply to farmers.

In the first case pertaining to irregularities in purchase and supply of mountages, CBI had found that the device supplied by the companies were not suitable for cocoon formation and were lying useless with the farmers.

The agency sources further said, Sivaprasad allegedly modified the specifications in the tender conditions to suit certain companies, that ultimately bagged the tender. CBI stated that the modified specification affected the quality and impacted the formation of cocoons.