In his district it was a practice to collect crores of rupees for earthen "bunds" meant for poor farmers, but which were never constructed. A bill for ₹80 million came up before Narayana Swamy. He inspected the "bund". He found it very weak and said that he will pass the bill after the rainy season to ensure that the "bund" served the purpose. As expected, the earthen "bund" was too weak to stand the rain and it disappeared in the rain. But he created a lot of enemies for saving ₹80 million public money.