Amaravati Lands Scam: AP CID Unearths Benami Purchases, Money Routing Linked to TDP P Narayana's Family

Feb 24, 2023, 17:29 IST

The Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department (AP CID) teams probing the alleged Amaravati assigned land scam on Friday conducted searches on the premises in the Hyderabad- based residences of the daughters of TDP senior leader and former minister Pongaru Narayana. The AP CID searched the residences of Puneeth Kothapa and Ponguru Sindhura, Indira, and Sharani on the alleged purchase of lands and money routing by the TDP leader and his relatives in the Amaravati Capital Lands area.

As per the detailed information provided by the AP CID on the flow of funds for the illegal and benami purchases of assigned lands made in the Amaravati area.:-

1. Fixation of “Seed Capital Area” based on the location of the lands of P.Narayana:

P. Narayana, the then Minister for MA&UD Dept., Govt. of A.P. played a key role in preparing the Master Plan of the Capital city/Seed Capital area by guiding the Master Planner M/s Surbana Jurong, owing to his position as the Vice-Chairman of the APCRDA and as Minister MA&UD Dept. By using his position in the High-Level Committee, P.Narayana could select the particular 6.84 sq. km of land to be ring-fenced as “Seed Area” .
Using the prior privileged information about the location of the Start-up Area, he purchased Acres 65.50 ½ cents of Agricultural lands through benami transactions, located in and around the Start-up area during June, July, and August 2015 i.e., for Rs 4.23 Crores in the name of Avula Muni Shankar (who is the cousin of P.Ramadevi, w/o .P.Narayana), Potturi Prameela who is an employee of M/s NSPIRA Management Services Pvt. Ltd., (managed by Puneeth Kothapa who is the son-in law of P.Narayana and P.Sindhura , daughter of P.Narayana) Rapuru Sambasiva Rao who is the brother of P.Ramadevi, and Varun Kumar Kothapa who is the brother of Puneeth Kothapa. Bulk deposits and transfer of funds were made in to the accounts of Potturi Prameela, Avula Muni Shankar, Rapuru Sambasiva Rao just prior to the purchase of those lands and lands were purchased in their names as the benamis of P.Narayana.

2.Changes in the Alignment of Inner Ring Road:

While designing the alignment of the Inner Ring Road( Eastern By-pass segment for Vijayawada), P.Narayana personally directed the designing consultant to arbitrarily shift the alignment of the IRR, 2 to 3 kilometres away from the 100 feet road from Tadigadapa to Enikepadu , closer to 7 of the campuses of Narayana Educational Institutions.He also got changes in the IRR made for the benefit of Lingamaneni Group and Heritage Foods Pvt. Ltd.

3.Benami purchases of Assigned Lands:

P.Narayana, his family members and relatives as benamis , illegally purchased 148 acres of Assigned lands in Amaravathi capital city.
Through Narayana Education Society, Narayana Learning Pvt Ltd and Ramanarayana Trust, Rs. 17.5 Crores of rupees were channelized in to the bank account of M/S Ramakrishna Housing Private Ltd.P.Subrahmanyam, Puneeth Kothappa, Ponguru Sindhura, Ponguru(Ghanta) Sharani, P.Rama Devi and P.Indira were the family members of P.Narayana who were the authorised signatories for the bank accounts of the above entities.
The money was then routed in to the bank accounts of the employees of M/s Ramakrishna Housing Pvt Ltd, headed by K.P.V.Anjani Kumar and payments were made to the farmers of the assigned lands. The farmers of the assigned lands were placed under stress by making them believe that the Government would resume the assigned lands without paying any compensation and the sale agreements were made in the names of the relatives of P. Narayana,acting as the benamis.