Senior bureaucrat D. Lakshmi Parthasarathy appears to be the fresh addition to list of IAS officials landing in trouble for doling out favours to the companies that invested in Kadapa MP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s businesses. Ms Parthasarathy, while serving as industrial principal secretary, proposed and issued orders (GO Rt. No. 741 dated 14.11.2006) reimbursing stamp duty and registration fee of `3.15 crore to Ramky Pharma City in Visakhapatnam.
The incentive to the Ramky group, which invested in the MP’s media house, came under scrutiny afresh following the Supreme Court's notices to minister Kanna Lakshminarayana and principal secretary B. Sambob, who held the industries portfolio at the time of reimbursing the amount in February, 2010.
Official sources said the file was never circulated to Mr Lakshminarayana at all as the decision to reimburse the stamp duty was taken in 2006 itself while Mr Sambob issued administrative sanction to release money to Ramky based on the 2006 order. Sources said the incentive to Ramky was initially opposed by the finance department which observed that the company was the sole bidder of the project and the concessions were not contemplated at the time of agreement.
It may not be possible to support concessions not contemplated at this stage, the department added. While the file was circulated to the then CM Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy through the chief secretary, who also endorsed the finance department's views, the then industries minister J. Geeta Reddy left it to YSR to take a decision.
Ms Parthasarathy intervened at that stage and recommended that though the firm was not eligible for concessions under the AP Infrastructure Development Enabling Act, the government may consider reimbursing the registration and transfer charges from the industries budget as all the mega projects were given the incentive. YSR approved the official’s recommendation.