HYDERABAD: Nalgonda district police arrested an eight-member gang which had cheated hundreds of farmers in the district, under the pretext of providing them with farm equipment. The gang cheated 498 farmers across the district of `1 crore during the last two years. “A total of five cases have been registered at Thipparthy, Nalgonda Rural, Madgulapally and Kanagal police stations and a special team has been constituted to probe the case.
“The accused had cheated farmers in 79 villages in19 mandals,” said Rema Rajeswari, SP Nalgonda. Initially Basavoju Nagabrahmachari, a farmer from Indloor village, Thipparthy Mandal lodged a complaint against one of the accused Singam Saidulu had cheated him and eight other farmers from the same village of `8.8 lakh promising them of providing a subsidy on farm equipment. Inquiries revealed that the main accused Nukala Nagaraju of Thipparthy was selected by the Watershed Department on outsourcing basis as part of the Central Government Employment Guarantee Scheme in the year 2012.
At that time, the then government was giving 75 per cent subsidy on farm equipment to farmers under PSI (Productivity Systems Improvement) scheme. Nagaraju, using his contacts with the then Watershed Project Officer, used to give some farm commodities under subsidy to some of his acquaintances and collected commission. In 2018, the Telangana government abolished the PSI (Productivity Systems Improvement) scheme. As a result, all outsourced employees working in the watershed scheme were removed. Nagaraju, using his previous working identity card, informed farmers that he would give farm equipment at half the market rate.