The Hindu Business Line : AP CM asks officials to trace transactions in Volkswagen scam

THE Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajashekhara Reddy, on Monday directed officials to trace the path of the flow of money and various transactions in the Vashishta Wahan, the special purpose vehicle created to facilitate the setting up of the proposed Volkswagen car plant in the State.

As a part of this exercise, the Chief Minister has directed the Industries Department officials to cull out details of the deal involving the proposed purchase of 50 ambulances for Rs 25 crore from the German car major , aimed at clinching the project deal during the erstwhile TDP regime.

The State Intelligence Department, which is probing into the deal and payoff related issues, has informed the Chief Minister about Mr Jagdish Alagar Raja, and Mr Ashok Jain, both involved in the setting up of the SPV created for the car project, sources said. Earlier, Congress leaders including Chief Whip, Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy, in a statement said, the probe needs to be expanded to various land transactions in Visakhapatnam, which would bring to light some of the transactions entered into by the Telugu Desam leaders.

Referring to the Telugu Desam campaign against the Volkswagen deal, the Congress leader said that they had resorted to a vilification campaign ignoring the correspondence and transactions between the former Chief Minister and TDP leader, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu.

He contended that the ambulance deal, which involved purchase of about 50 ambulances at an exorbitant price of Rs 50 lakhs apiece was a bigger scandal than the Volkswagen deal, which involved payment of Rs11.5 crore into the special purpose vehicle.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page