During the YSRCP regime, another scandal has come to light that happened in the eyes of Madhusudan Reddy, the former MD of AP Fibernet. It is alleged that the number of connections of that company has been reduced by half in five years and the amount of monthly bills collected to that extent has been diverted to a benami account.
Thus every month Rs. 14 crores diverted over a period of 17 months to the extent of Rs. 238 crores seems to have been embezzled. In collusion with chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy, Madhusudan Reddy makes the Fibernet to push into Rs. 1,258 crore debts.
A deeper inquiry into this whole affair will bring the real facts to light. The number of AP Fibernet cable connections in 2019 was around 9 lakhs. According to the current records, the number of connections shown by the company are only 5 lakhs.
It can be argued that the number of connections will decrease due to the decrease in public acceptance of fibernet services. But there is a demand from people to take another 20 lakh new connections. In such a situation there may not be scope for fall in the number of connections.
The government has introduced the pre-paid system for some districts from December 10, 2022, and for the remaining districts from January 10, 2023. When the post paid system was in place, cable operators across the state used to deposit the bill amount every month in the company’s bank account.
Since the prepaid system came into force, the operators have brought a provision to pay the monthly bills through an app. It has been shown that the number of connections has decreased drastically since then. In fact, operators say that the number of connections has not decreased.
It is stated that the bills are paid through the app every month as always. It seems that only in the records of the company, the number of connections have been reduced and to that extent the amount collected under the monthly bills in respect of 4 lakh connections has been diverted to the benami account.
It is reported that an AGM and director played a key role in this matter. According to staff, Green Lantern, an IT firm, had developed an app that operators used to pay monthly bills for Fibernet connections.
It seems that the programming has been designed so that the payments made by the operators through the app will be credited to the Fibernet account only to the extent of active connections shown in records. And the remaining amount transferred to the benami account, which was reportedly transferred to a bank account in Mumbai.