Senior leader of the Telugu Desam Party(TDP) and former Minister Ch. Ayyanna Patrudu has challenged the CID to conduct a physical verification of assets and prove the charges of corruption allegedly made against the AP Skill Development Corporation during the previous government’s rule or else admit its ‘mistake’.
Addressing a media conference, along with party spokesman K. Pattabhiram, here on Saturday, Mr. Patrudu said that he was ready to come, on behalf of the party, for a probe by the CID at any of the 40 Skill Development Centres (SDCs) in the State. Challenging the CID, he said: “I will give the details of the amounts spent on setting up of the SDCs and acquisition of tools for those centres.”
The SDCs were established during the tenure of the Chandrababu Naidu government to provide skill training to youths, who were being rejected by industries.
Mr. Naidu had sent a team to Gujarat and brought the Siemens company. The company had agreed to invest 90% of the funds and the remaining 10%, which was ₹370 crore, had to be paid by the State government.
An eight-member monitoring committee, consisting of senior IAS officers, was appointed to submit what all was needed for the SDCs, which were planned to be set up all over the State.
He alleged that the YSR Congress Party government was misusing the CID to target those who question its actions. Arrests were being made without proof and the CID was being made to dance to the tunes of the Chief Minister. The CID report says that ₹240 crore was diverted from the Designtech company to shell companies, but the same report says that the funds were transferred back to Designtech.
Mr. Patrudu said that the CID had raided the homes of Ganta Subba Rao and Lakshminarayana, while leaving out Premachandra Reddy, then MD and CEO of AP SDC.
He wondered how the CID could arrest them, without conducting a physical verification of assets, and alleged it was nothing but indulging in ‘mudslinging against the TDP’.
Mr. Pattabhiram alleged that the CID has lost its credibility. The CID report says that the shell companies had routed back the amounts, allegedly diverted by Designtech and there ends the case. The CID has admitted that no physical verification of assets was done and gave the reason for the same as ‘dropping of the physical verification clause’.
