Corruption cases on the rise in erstwhile Adilabad despite ACB crackdown

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has reported a steep rise in bribery cases across the erstwhile Adilabad district, which includes Adilabad, Mancherial, Nirmal and Kumram Bheem Asifabad. Cases jumped from 18 in 2024 to 31 in 2025, marking a 72 percent increase.

Adilabad: Even as Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials arrest public servants while accepting bribes from people, corruption among officials of various departments is apparently going up as indicated by a significant rise in the number of cases registered in the erstwhile Adilabad district this year.

ACB officials said that the erstwhile Adilabad district comprising Adilabad, Mancherial, Nirmal and Kumram Bheem Asifabad districts saw 31 cases from January 1 to December 1 as against 18 cases reported in 2024, reflecting an increase of 72 percent. The four districts witnessed a considerable spike of 125 percent in the cases in 2024 when compared to the eight cases in 2023.

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On November 6, Narsinga Rao, a district manager from the Civil Supplies Corporation and K Manikanth, an outsourced technical assistant were arrested while allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 75,000 from an owner of a rice mill. The manager demanded the bribe to allow the transportation of PDS rice from the complainant’s warehouse to one of the civil supplies depots.

Rathod Bikku, in-charge of the District Cooperative Office (DCO) of Kumram Bheem Asifabad, was arrested by Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials on the charges of receiving a bribe of Rs 2 lakh from an employee of a cooperative bank on October 25. He reportedly demanded Rs.12 lakh to reinstate the employee and to pay salaries during his suspension.

“Greed among the officials is comparatively going up despite the cases. A section of officials is harassing the public demanding bribes to do their official favour. They are using middlemen, private persons and outsourced employees to exert pressure on the public for bribes. They were directly approaching the people in the past,” an ACB official told ‘Telangana Today’.

The officials immediately set a dragnet once a complaint is lodged against a public servant. They, however, gather basic pieces of evidence such as voice recording, video recording, etc., before laying a special focus on an official. They take precautionary measures and arrest the servants at the time of committing the offence.