KHAMMAM: With police cracking down on smugglers transporting rice meant for Public Distribution System (PDS), the racketeers are coming up with different methods to keep the operations going. However, smugglers in the erstwhile Khammam district are using two-wheelers to evade the police net.
Sources said as much as 500 quintals of PDS rice is being illegally transported to Andhra Pradesh from the Satupalli Assembly segment. Most of the stolen grains are being sold to poultry farms. It was learnt that the smugglers buy the rice at Rs 8 per kg and sell it at Rs 12 per kg in AP.
Over 50 involved in smuggling
The smugglers are colluding with the fair price shop (FPS) dealers, who pay `4 per kg to the ration card holders unwilling to take the rice and sell the same to smugglers at `8 per kg, said sources. The high demand for cheap rice in AP is due to a large number of poultry farms in the border areas and for producing liquor.
As many as 50 people from different villages in the border areas of Telangana have been roped in for the operations. Every morning between 2.30 and 4.30 am, the transporters smuggle the rice on their motorcycles.
A resident of Bharanipadu village in Andhra Pradesh, SK Pasha, said every morning, they are awoken by the sounds of motorcycles passing by. Each smuggler carries 1.5 quintals of rice per trip and does about three to four trips in the two-hour span, he added.
He said most of the rice comes from Vemsoor, Marlapadu and Kandukur villages in Telangana and enters AP at Bharanipadu as the destination is Endapalli village where the distribution is carried out. K Satyanarayana, deputy tahsildaar, Civil Supplies Department, Vemsoor, told TNIE, “We are looking into the smuggling and taking all steps possible to curb it.”