VISAKHAPATNAM: Yet another minister has been found to have received a payout from the liquor lobby, this time in Visakhapatnam district. Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) personnel did not name the minister in findings they submitted to their higher-ups but he is said to have received a bribe of Rs 1.2 lakh on November 30 last year for allowing a local liquor syndicate to sell above the maximum retail price (MRP).This startling revelation was made in a report compiled by ACB sleuths in Visakhapatnam on the basis of documents seized from a local cartel called the Ganesh liquor syndicate. The report contains an abstract of bribes paid to public servants of different departments from July 1, 2010 to November 30, 2011.The syndicate is said to have kept records diligently, recording payments made to excise officers, policemen and others. The amounts range from the thousands to lakhs of rupees.The big fish among these small pomfrets is said to be a minister from north coastal Andhra. That makes him the third minister allegedly caught with their hands in glove with liquor traders. Only one of them has so far been named, excise minister Mopidevi Venkataramana.The other faceless one is already the subject of a political controversy, with the opposition demanding that his name be revealed.The Ganesh syndicate paid Rs 1.2 lakh to the unnamed minister in eight tranches, the ACB report says. Altogether, excise staff received a whopping Rs 1.06 crore including one deputy commissioner who got Rs 2 lakh in August 2011. An excise superintendent received Rs 5 lakh, says the ACB report submitted by deputy superintendent of police K V R K Prasad.Policemen were among the small fish, according to the report, receiving mamools amounting to only Rs 51,800.The dossier also has details of smaller payouts: Rs 21,000 for the flight tickets of a threemember group comprising the Visakhapatnam East MLA and two other individuals, KVR and Ganesh. The syndicate also bore Rs 17,000 for their return journeys.The report also said Rs 10 lakh was spent by the liquor traders through KVR in Hyderabad on arranging a dance concert in Visakhapatnam for the benefit of IT department staff. No names are mentioned in this regard.ACB staff have for the last three days been interrogating suspects to identify liquor syndicate members in Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam districts. A team of officials has completed the interrogation of excise officials and liquor vendors who were arrested on January. 28.
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