Chandrababu Naidu to be produced at ACB court in fibernet scam case on Monday

VIJAYAWADA: The ACB court here on Thursday granted permission to the Andhra Pradesh CID to issue a Prisoner in Transit (PT) warrant for former Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu in connection with an alleged multicrore-rupee fibernet scam case.

The ACB court in Vijayawada ordered to produce the Telugu Desam Party chief physically between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm on Monday.

This is the third graft case, after the skill development case and the Amaravati inner ring road case, in which Naidu was named accused. Fibernet scam is a case of alleged manipulation of the tender process to allot the work order for Phase-1 of the AP Fibernet Project of Rs 330 crore to a favored company, by flouting the rules and manipulating the tender process.

The scam allegedly happened when Naidu was holding the portfolio of the energy, infrastructure, and investment department CID alleged that several irregularities took place from the allotting of tender till the completion of the total project causing huge losses to the government exchequer.

Owing to the use of substandard material, violating the conditions, and non-adherence to the specifications mentioned in the RFP while executing the project, nearly 80 per cent of the capacity of the Optic Fiber Cable was rendered unusable.

The deviations committed at the time of execution of the AP Fibergrid Phase-I contract caused a loss of about Rs 114 crore to the government exchequer.

There would be further losses caused by expensive operation and maintenance works and loss of revenue owing to 80 per cent unusable optic fiber.

Naidu was arrested by the Andhra Pradesh Criminal Investigation Department (CID) last month While Chandrababu continues to be in judicial custody in the skill development case, he was granted anticipatory bail by the Andhra Pradesh High Court in the Amaravati inner ring road case till October 16 on Wednesday.