From a small shed with Rs 5 lakh, how uncle-nephew Reddy duo built Megha Engineering, second-largest bond donor

In 1989, P P Reddy, hailing from a farmer’s family in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, set up the shed at Balanagar in Hyderabad by the name of Megha Engineering Enterprises. He was joined by his nephew P V Krishna Reddy in 1991. In a few years, they expanded to constructing roads and small infrastructure projects.

In 2006, P P Reddy changed the firm’s name to Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited and entered into major projects like constructing power plants, highways, irrigation projects, and natural gas distribution projects in several cities.

Industry insiders say it is Krishna Reddy’s enterprise and bold strategies that turned the small company into an industrial conglomerate, executing projects in over 20 states as well as abroad. As head of one of the largest companies with years of experience in executing mega projects, he was known to chief ministers of both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

In 2016, the Telangana Government awarded contracts to construct several phases of the massive Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project, which cost over Rs 1 lakh crore. When the BRS was in power, A Revanth Reddy, who was then in the opposition and is now the CM, repeatedly accused the government as well as MEIL of indulging in corruption and siphoning off crores from the project.

The Chief Minister has now constituted a judicial commission to probe alleged irregularities in the project, the majority of which was executed by the MEIL.

In Andhra Pradesh, when Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy was in the opposition from 2014 to 2019, he had accused MEIL, when it was awarded the Pattiseema irrigation project by then CM N Chandrababu Naidu, of corruption. However, in 2019, after Jagan came to power, he cancelled the contract with Navayuga Engineering to construct portions of the Polavaram Project, and awarded it to MEIL.

In October 2019, Income Tax authorities searched the premises of MEIL on suspicion of tax evasion. In August 2020, MEIL won the Rs 4,509-crore contract to construct Zojila tunnel.

In the past four years, MEIL has also waded into the media industry by teaming up with Hyderabad-based My Home Group and acquiring TV9 Telugu channel, and purchasing 22 per cent stake in NTV Telugu channel. The company has also ventured into manufacturing large electric vehicles – in 2000, MEIL launched Olectra Greentech Limited to manufacture e-buses and trucks.