A petition is filed by ‘Forum against corruption’ organization against KCR and IAS officer Arvind Kumar based on the information obtained through RTI act. As per the petition, Telangana government is helping the media outlets owned by the relatives of KCR by allocating ads for dis-proportionally huge amounts. Anti corruption activist Vijay Gopal’s post creating tremors in social media. Details as below.
It is known news that KCR himself launched Namasthe Telangana in June 2011 during Telangana movement. His son, K.T. Rama Rao, was on the initial board of the Telangana Publications Private Limited. Similarly TNews also was started by KCR, along with Damodar Rao Divakonda, Gandra Mohan Rao and Santhosh Kumar Joginipally. KCR’s daughter-in-law is director of Namaste Telangana and Telangana today. Given these facts, RTI was filed in 2016 seeking details of ad expenditure by Telangana government and the response of the Information and Public Relations Department of the Government of Telangana to this RTI application shocked many.
Anti corruption activist Vijay Gopal posted in social media about the petition filed by his institute ‘Forum against corruption’ . As per the petition, TS government has been helping the media outlets of T-News, Namaste Telangana and Telangana today and these outlets are earning crores of rupees each year as ad revenue from Telangana state government. The activist from ‘Forum against corruption’ also pointed that KCR’s government is circumventing the procedures to help these media outlets owned by KCR’s relatives. The petition says that more than 45% of ads of TS government were given to these three media outlets. The petition was filed with Telangana vigilance commissioner and CBI under section 13 of prevention of corruption act. The petitioner also warned Telangana vigilance commissioner and CBI that if FIR is not filed on this issue, he will move to High Court regarding the same. Along with KCR, petitioner also targeted IAS officer Arvind Kumar and says, as IAS officer, he has the responsibility to stop this arbitrary allocation of ads but instead of doing so he is actually helping these media outlets get undue advantage. The petitioner has approached enforcement directorate as well and urged to take action on these media outlets under Prevention of Money laundering act, 2005.
The data published by the anti-corruption activist along with complete details of ad expenditure by TS government shows that public money has been mismanaged. However, TS government is yet to come up with its version on the subject. We will have to wait and see for further developments of this issue.
