Income Tax Dept Carries Out Raids on Telangana CM's Close Associates' Construction Company

Hyderabad: The Income Tax department carried out raids at multiple offices of Telugu tycoon Krishna Reddy’s Mega Engineering Infrastructure Limited (MEIL) in Hyderabad and other cities.

The MEIL is one of the major infrastructure service providers in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. MEIL directors Reddy, who is popularly known as 'Megha', and Pamireddy Pichi Reddy, are close associates of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.

The I-T department raided Reddy's offices, residence and guest house in 15 locations in Hyderabad and also in the company's properties in Delhi and Mumbai.

MEIL was awarded the contract for construction of Kaleswaram Project, one of the world's largest lift irrigation projects and a flagship programme of the Telangana government’s Mission Bhageeratha, which provides water to every household with 45,500-kilometer pipeline with estimation cost of Rs 40,000 crores.

The company also constructed Pattiseema irrigation project in record time in Andhra Pradesh.

Besides the Telugu states, MEIL has large power projects in Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. MEIL has also built Khargone lift irrigation project in Madhya Pradesh.

Apart from Hyderabad, the company has offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Bhopal, Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar and Bengaluru, and sources said that are underway at all the locations.

The Income Tax Department suspects malfunctioning in the accounts of MEIL.

Reacting to the I-T raids, MEIL issued an official press note saying, “The income tax department is inspecting our office today. It is a routine inspection. It may come to your notice as well. I would like to clarify that it is not a raid or search and just a routine inspection.”

The MEIL Group of Companies comprises a total of 12 companies, which works in the fields of power generation, transmission, irrigation, infrastructure development and transportation. The turnover of the company in 2017-18 was 20 thousand crores and the company is expanding in the area of railways, airports and ports.