Fact Sheet: Satyam takes govt for a ride!

Satyam group's Ramalinga Raju is one of the few industrialists in the State who could continue to get patronage from the State government, irrespective of the party in power – whether it was Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam or Y S Rajasekhar Reddy's Congress.

Raju, who is the richest industrialist in the State, has taken the government for a ride by entering into an agreement with it on running the Emergency Medicare Services by name "108." Though it is an excellent scheme providing emergency medical facilities like ambulance service with sofisticated equipment, it is said to be one of the schemes of Raju to avoid payment of income tax to the government.

According to sources, Raju had to pay highest amount of income tax (about Rs 45 crore) in a single year because of the huge profits Satyam made a couple of years ago. To avoid this, Raju started the Emergency Medicare Service, signed an MoU with the government to run it as a charitable and service organisation and got exemption from the income tax. Above all, he got the government land at a concessional rate on the city outskirts to run this project, employed staff at huge salaries and gained all the benefits associated with it, apart from avoiding the income tax.

After getting the benefits, Raju quietly handed over the project to the State government and retained a nominal percentage in it. YSR, as is his won't, named it after "Rajiv Gandhi." The project will continue to be run by the Satyam group only, but for the name and the State government's emblem. Two birds at one shot!!