VIJAYAWADA: Police have unearthed a multi-crore scam involving management of NRI hospital in Mangalagiri of Guntur district. The police have booked 11 persons, including NRI Academy of Sciences vice-president Dr Nimmagadda Upendranadh, and treasurer Akkineni Mani on charges of siphoning off several crores from the academy by creating fictitious records and accounts and taking advantage of the Covid pandemic.
DSP (Central Crime) filed a chargesheet in the court of Additional Junior Civil Judge on Tuesday .The investigation revealed that the directors of the hospital, Nimmagadda Upendranath, Dr Mani Akkineni, chief coordinating officer Uppala Srinivasa Rao, chief financial officer Nalini Mohan and others were involved in the fraud. An internal inquiry also revealed that the scam spread to even COVID patient's payments.
According to the details in the chargesheet, Gadddipati Srinivasa Rao, working as office assistant at the NRI Academy lodged a complaint with the police on June 19, 2021, alleging that the accused resorted to misappropriating funds to the tune of several crore over several years.
In the complaint, he said that the accused created a fictitious account under the name of 'buildings' and transferred approximately Rs 4,30,72,966 in the period between April 5, 2017 and May 15, 2018. However, no construction was undertaken on the premises of the academy at Chinakakani.
He also alleged that the accused collected huge amounts from the students for management quota seats for 2018-19 academic session and diverted an amount of Rs 3,07,41,448 by creating a fictitious account in the name of MBBS Fee Suspense account.
Srinvias Rao also complained that NRI Hospital was permitted to treat COVID patients and the accused collected huge amounts towards treatment fee from the relatives of the patients and issued manual receipts with lesser amounts than the actual amount.
He further mentioned that Nimmagadda Upendranadh, Akkineni Mani, Uppala Srinivasa Rao, and Vallupallki Nalini Mohan with the assistance of employees (A5 to A9) transferred the misappropriated amount to the fake accounts.
The police during verification of data of 30 patients out of 1,200 patients with the billing department noticed that an amount of Rs 73,44,600 was misappropriated by the accused. They also found that during the COVID pandemic, as per the instructions of Nalini Mohan, and Srinivasa Rao, manual receipts were issued for the amounts received from relatives of the COVID patients.
The amounts were not entered in the billing report on any day and the amount was handed over to Nalini Mohan by entering the same in a small notebook. Witnesses in the case examined by the police said that nearly Rs 50 crore cash was taken by Nalini Mohan.
According to sources, On September 24, 2020, a retired judge and his wife were admitted into the hospital. They paid Rs 2 lakh as advance for the treatment.
After being discharged from the hospital, the judge asked the hospital to return the advance payment as the High Court paid the treatment cost to the hospital.Following this, an enquiry was initiated and it was found that records and details of at least 1,500 patients were not entered into the computers.
COVID patients handed over manual receipts
The police found that during the COVID pandemic, as per the instructions of Nalini Mohan, and Srinivasa Rao, manual receipts were issued for the amounts received from relatives of the COVID patients. The amounts were not entered in the billing report on any day and the amount was handed over to Nalini Mohan by entering the same in a small notebook.
Witnesses in the case examined by the police said that nearly Rs 50 crore cash was taken by Nalini Mohan