KHAMMAM: The Palvoncha town police, on Monday, registered a case against Kothagudem Thermal Power station (KTPS) project director B Laxmaiah and five others for cheating as many as 60 casual labourers, under the guise of providing them permanent employment, and extorting around Rs 2.50 crore from the victims.
According to police, when B Laxmaiah was Chief Engineer at KTPS in 2017, he had collected around `2.50 crore from about 60 causal labourers by promising to make them permanent at the power station. Apart from Laxmaiah, KTPS executive engineers Suresh and Nagendra, assistant engineer Murali Manohar, contractor Satyanarayana and his wife have also been booked by the cops.
According to the victims, who work at Stage-7 at the thermal power station in Palvoncha, the accused officials, by assuring to provide jobs, collected about Rs 4 lakh in cash, promissory notes and/or cheques from each labourer. They even created fake appointment orders and gave them to six employees so that more gullible labourers land in their trap. Speaking to the media, Palvoncha town Additional SI Rateesh Kumar said that the case was registered based on complaints filed by victims. He also said that the case is under investigation.