Irregularities found at MRO offices in Visakhapatnam during ACB raids

Major irregularities have been revealed in the functioning of the Mandal Revenue Offices (MRO) in Visakhapatnam. These irregularities came to light when Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials conducted raids at various MRO offices in the district last week. The ACB officials had raided six MRO offices; namely Vizag Rural, Seethammadhara, Pendurthi, Anandapuram, Atchutapuram and Padmanabha Mandalam, apart from some offices in Vizianagaram District.

During the surprise raids, ACB teams collected information on applications received, rejected and pending files, from June 2020 till date. The raids were focused mainly on mutations, and land exchange applications. The ACB officials discovered severe irregularities in the documents and seized them accordingly. From some of the MRO offices in Visakhapatnam, hard disks, CDs, chequebooks and passbooks were also seized.

Applications for pattadar passbooks, and other certificates, were found to be pending at these offices. At the Padmanabham MRO office, around 114 passbooks provided by the Andhra Pradesh State Government were kept stocked, and not given to the beneficiaries.

Also, some applications were found to have been rejected without just cause. “We have found irregularities in the department. Especially in delaying applications of people who applied for pattadar books. Many applications have been found rejected manually without a valid reason. However, it is a big process, we need to take more details from different sections and submit a detailed report to the State Government,” said ACB DSP K Lakshmana Murthy.

The raids happened on 20 and 21 July 2021 when ACB officials acted on complaints and allegations of corruption on MRO and Tahsildar offices in Visakhapatnam.