The house of Harinarayan Rai under construction in Harmu. (Hardeep Singh)

Ranchi, July 3: Even as former minister Harinarayan Rai, along with Anosh Ekka, continues to evade the vigilance dragnet, the sleuths today conducted an evaluation of Rai’s sprawling house under construction in Harmu to assess the extent of money allegedly laundered by him.

“A technical evaluation wing of the state vigilance bureau today began the process of assessing the real worth of the multi-storey house belonging to Harinarayan Rai. The building is still under construction. The purpose of the evaluation is to find out the real value of the building, the money invested so far by the ex-minister and the sources of funds,” DIG (vigilance) V.K. Pandey said.

“The final assessment report will be prepared in a week’s time,” he added.

Rai’s house lies adjacent to the plot gifted by the state to Team India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Construction of a house is also in progress on the Team India skipper’s land.

The value of assets is often a bone of contention between the accused and the investigating agency.

The accused usually undervalues his properties, particularly in disproportionate assets cases. Hence, to avoid any confusion, an evaluation is done by an expert agency, in this case the technical evaluation wing of the vigilance department.

Pandey pointed out that the technical wing was headed by an officer of the rank of a chief engineer and the assessment made by it was accepted by courts.

However, in course of his earlier deposition before the state vigilance, Rai had submitted that he had obtained loans from his relatives and friends for the multi-storey building under construction in Harmu.

However, vigilance sleuths challenge the declaration on the ground that cross-checks with various sources have established that the former minister had diverted funds to his relatives in Dhanbad and other places. These people, in turn, deposited the cash in Rai’s bank accounts.

According to documents collected so far, Rai, who had served as the urban development minister in successive governments from April 2005 and November 2008, has unaccounted assets worth Rs 1.23 crore, in excess of his known sources of incomes.

While, Ekka, who held charge of the rural development and transport department, has reportedly amassed more than Rs 3.78 crore in the same period.

It might be recalled that following issuance of arrest warrants against Rai and Ekka by the vigilance court on June 28, the sleuths had conducted raids at various places in Ranchi and Simdega to arrest the two former ministers. But the two were missing.

Meanwhile, sources said that further raids would be conducted at various destinations, including residences of the relatives of the two former ministers to arrest them.