The “public inquiry” ordered by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday into the multi-crore Visakhapatnam land scam is unlikely to yield any result, as it allegedly involved several TDP leaders and people might not come forward to give evidences.
The Chief Minister sought all the details ahead of the public inquiry to be held by Revenue Minister KE Krishna Murthy at the Collectorate here on June 15.
But the inquiry is being viewed as a mere eyewash. Even senior minister Ch Ayyanna Patrudu himself openly alleged at a public forum during the inaugural day of Nava Nirmaan Deeksha on Friday that several TDP were leaders were involved in the scam.
Patrudu alleged that the police were also involved in the scam though filed a PD case against the realtor, which many say an eyewash. TDP sources said the lands under dispute could cost more than Rs 25,000 crore.
Not only Ayyanna Patrudu, the BJP, CPM and YSRCP leaders have blamed the ruling party leaders and demanded a comprehensive inquiry.
The scam rocked the state bringing the construction activity to halt in the city. The District Collector, who admitted that there were 22 cases of tampering of revenue records, formed six teams to probe deep into the tampering of the records in the district.
He also suspended the tahsildars of Visakhapatnam rural and Bhimili after finding their direct involvement in the tampering. Both the officials facilitated the issue of pattadar passbooks in the name of private persons.
The passbooks include poramboke lands, government lands and even some of the lands belonging to private persons.
During the initial probe, the officials have identified that over 200 acres of the land, mostly government lands, worth over Rs 1,800 crore in Kommadi and about 45 acres of land in Madhurawada, which includes government and private lands costing about Rs 500 crore, have been tampered with.
The scamsters did not spare even the lands of Union Minister P Ashok Gajapathi Raju and family in Bhimili. About 35 acres of the land belonging to them has been affected in the scam.
The revenue officials issued pattadar passbooks to private persons not even checking the original adangal records and later sold to some companies owned by private persons.
