The three persons managed the government subsidies, meant for farmers, by uploading fake documents and information on the portal. They, further, collected cheques in advance, from the beneficiaries before the subsidy amounts were credited in the bank accounts.
Photo: iStock
The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Police, have arrested 3 people charging the trio with misappropriating government subsidies, to the tune of Rs 12 crore, meant for the supply of agricultural equipment to the farmers.
Identified as Pradeep Kumar Acharya, Prabha Ranjan Dash and Shaik Fayaz, they allegedly, misappropriated the government subsidy, meant for the farmers and beneficiaries by producing forged documents, email IDs and UTR.
The firms, floated by them, are registered under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme. The company has appointed 115 dealers throughout Odisha.
The trio uploaded their fake invoices, photos of the beneficiaries and UTR nos. etc. in the DBT portal and managed the subsidy amount, meant for the beneficiaries and farmers.
The accused persons, fraudulently, claimed to have sold or supplied more agro equipment than they have actually supplied. In many cases, even no equipment has, at all been supplied. But by using the fake or false UTRs, they have managed to avail the subsidy amount.
Advertisement
“It has also been found that before the subsidy amount was credited to the account of beneficiaries and farmers, the accused persons, in some cases, have collected the advance cheque from the beneficiaries in order to withdraw the total subsidy amount.
They used to take away major subsidy amounts from the beneficiaries by this devious means, paying just a meager amount to such farmers and beneficiaries.
Advertisement
