: The Anti-Corruption Bureau, which has concluded that a Rs.700 crore fund “diversion” took place in the state’s sheep purchase scam during the BRS rule, is trying to ascertain the role of former minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav's Officer on Duty (OSD) in this huge scam. It is believed that Srinivas Yadav’s OSD G.
Kalyan Kumar and some other officers influenced the staff in committing the grave offence. Srinivas Yadav was holding charge of the animal husbandry department at that time. The ACB arrested the accused a few days ago.
The agency now sought court permission for the police custody of the accused officers —Sabavath Ramchander, the CEO of Telangana Livestock Development Agency, and Kalyan Kumar — for questioning them. The ACB confirmed the fraud after its preliminary investigations. It found that funds of at least Rs.
700 crore from the animal husbandry department were diverted illegally, on the pretext of sheep purchase from farmers, at different places. Kalyan Kumar as the minister’s OSD influenced senior officers and staff and accepted mamools, the investigations revealed. The ACB noted that over Rs.
700 crore in funds was diverted to private accounts in the fictitious names of ‘farmers’. It is yet to be ascertained, however, as to which all fictitious accounts were used to divert funds and where this money reached. The BRS government, in its first term, implemented the scheme to provide sheep to farmers.
The aim, it had said, was to increase meat ex.