Vijayawada, August 17: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested a senior railway official and a private individual for accepting a bribe of ₹1.5 million. The arrests were made on Sunday, accompanied by simultaneous raids at locations in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Pithapuram, and Hyderabad.
According to an official statement, the senior section engineer, Bapiraju, who works in the Projects Office of the Chief Signal and Telecommunications Engineer at South Central Railway in Vijayawada, and Srichand, the son of the Managing Director of Yela Constructions, were apprehended based on a tip-off.
The CBI conducted a sting operation on Sunday, catching the senior section engineer red-handed while accepting the bribe. The money was allegedly given in exchange for approving and releasing a bonus amount for Yela Constructions.
During the operation, the CBI seized the ₹1.5 million bribe. Both accused will be presented in a special CBI court in Vijayawada on Monday.
The CBI has also registered a case against the senior section engineer, representatives from four private companies, and several unidentified government and private individuals for soliciting and accepting bribes.
According to the CBI, a joint venture between two private companies, Ganapati Engineering Works and Yela Constructions, was awarded an automatic block signaling project worth ₹1.795 billion by South Central Railway.
The investigation agency revealed that the joint venture claimed a bonus of approximately ₹70 million for completing the work ahead of schedule.
Reports indicate that officials from the CSTE Projects Office in Vijayawada allegedly manipulated dates in the bonus-related files to provide undue benefits to the joint venture and facilitated the approval of the bonus claim.
The CBI also noted that on August 16, the Managing Director of the private company informed the accused senior section engineer that his son would deliver the bribe amount while traveling from Visakhapatnam to Vijayawada.
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