In a swift operation, the police raided on a rice godown in the city on Sunday and seized 420 bags of rice, each weighing 50 kg, meant for distribution under the Anna Bhagya scheme.
Based on a tip-off, the police along with senior officials of the Food and Civil Supplies Department raided a godown near Bankapur Chowk and took the entire rice stock to their custody. The police have detained a person in connection with the illegal storage of the rice.
After the raid, Hubli-Dharwad Police Commissioner told reporters that the godown belonged to Satish Shirasangi and rice bags found there were meant for distribution under the PDS scheme. But Shirasnagi had claimed that he had purchased the rice bags from Balaji Traders, located at APMC Amargol.
However, the government had appointed the Balaji Traders as nodal agency for distributing rice for Anna Bhagya scheme in Hubli taluk. In this case, the agency was said to have sold rice to godown owner and it would only be ascertained after going through the legitimate records.
Then only investigation on the case would proceed further, he said.