Builders colluded with HMDA director, cheated us: Locals

HYDERABAD: Many people, including residents of gated communities, have approached anti-corruption bureau (ACB) alleging that their builder, in collusion with accused

HMDA

director

K Purushotham Reddy

, cheated them by resorting to various violations. Special

ACB

teams are looking at those complaints.

After registering a disproportionate assets (DA) case against Purushotham Reddy for the second time in nine years and unearthing ₹25 crore worth disproportionate assets by conducting searches at his properties on February 2, ACB officials appealed to the people asking them to approach the bureau if they have

corruption

related complaint against Reddy.

About 15 persons have approached the bureau in the past few weeks, including residents of a posh gated community in Gandipet, land owners and real estate businessmen. All of them have different complaints against Purushotham Reddy.

Residents of the posh gated community in Gandipet approached the ACB alleging that the developer of the community, which proposed to build 316 villas over an area of 42 acres, cheated them in collusion with Purushotham Reddy.

“Around 188 people purchased villas in the gated community, each one costing between ₹2 crore and ₹4 crore. When they purchased, the developer promised to leave 17% area in the project as open space. But later, in collusion with

Purushotham Reddy

, they got an approval and left only 11% area as open space. The builder also added seven more acres to the original project area at a later date, but did not leave any proportionate open space. They did this even after people, who had purchased villas, raised multiple objections,” an ACB official said.

Several real estate project developers also approached the ACB saying that their project files seeking various permissions have remained pending at the accused official’s desk for more than a year. The realtors told ACB officials that their files remained pending as they failed to meet the ‘required criteria’.

“As director of planning, HMDA, Purushotham Reddy used to delay the processing of a project file by seeking clearances from different government departments. After his arrest, several aggrieved realtors approached us with complaints. But some of their files were cleared by the officials who are currently handling Purushotham Reddy’s duties at the HMDA,” said an investigating official.

After receiving the complaints, ACB officials are writing to the concerned departments seeking relevant information. ACB officials have also written to different sub-registrars in and around the city to alert the bureau about any one attempting to do a transaction with the alleged disproportionate assets linked to the accused.

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