Two held for misappropriating govt subsidy on farm machinery

The accused brothers Manas and Tapas received the subsidy amount by uploading fake invoices, information and unique transaction reference in the DBT portal.
Image used for representational purpose. (File Photo)
Image used for representational purpose. (File Photo)

BHUBANESWAR: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch arrested two brothers for allegedly misappropriating government subsidy amounting to `6.81 crore meant to supply agricultural equipment to the farmers in the State.Director of Sheetal Agro Inputs private limited Manas Ranjan Dash and proprietor of Mishita Enterprises Tapas Kumar Dash misappropriated the government subsidy meant for the farmers/beneficiaries by manufacturing and using forged documents and email IDs.

EOW investigation has revealed that Sheetal Agro’s office is at Purohitpur in Jagatsinghpur district and is registered with Odisha’s department of Agriculture under direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme as a manufacturing firm of equipment like transplanter machines.

During financial year 2018-2019 and 2019-2020, Sheetal Agro’s director Manas in connivance with eight dealers including Mishita uploaded several fake invoices and information regarding purported supply/sale of 504 transplanters to as many farmers in 19 districts like Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Balasore, Khurda, Kalahandi and Sambalpur.

The accused managed to avail subsidy amount of `6.81 crore which was disbursed in the bank accounts of the beneficiaries/farmers.EOW officers have established that out of the total transplanter machines claimed to have been supplied by Sheetal Agro, 337 were shown to have been sold by its dealer Mishita between 2018 and 2020.

The accused brothers Manas and Tapas received the subsidy amount by uploading fake invoices, information and unique transaction reference in the DBT portal. As claimed by Sheetal Agro, no transplanter machine was manufactured or sold by its dealers. Once the subsidy was credited to the account of beneficiaries/farmers, Manas, Tapas and other dealers used to lure them to withdraw the entire amount. They took away major share of subsidy in cash from the beneficiaries by paying them a meagre amount in return.

The agency’s officers have seized many incriminating documents like the details of farmers/beneficiaries, fake invoices, money receipts and one hard disc containing the data uploaded on the DBT portal.EOW officers came to know about the fraud while investigating a similar case which was registered last year. “A case was registered in this connection on April 2 and the accused brothers were arrested on Wednesday. They were produced at a court in Jagatsinghpur on Thursday,” said EOW DIG, Jai Narayan Pankaj.

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