HYDERABAD: Enforcement Directorate Hyderabad Zonal Office found a number of irregularities in the Sheep Rearing Development Scheme and the agency officially revealed a scam worth exceeding Rs 1000 crore.
The agency conducted searches and inquired G Kalyan Kumar (OSD to then Animal Husbandry Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav) under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in connection with financial irregularities in the implementation of ‘Sheep Rearing Development Scheme (SRDS)’ in the state of Telangana.
ED initiated an investigation on the basis of FIRs registered by the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Telangana. In one FIR, it was alleged that after the formation of the new government in the state, the OSD to the ex-minister, Talasani Srinivas Yadav, had removed some records from the department office by breaking in. Another FIR was registered by a complainant sheep merchant alleging that Rs 2.1 crore, which was due to be paid to them for supplying sheep units, was siphoned off by the Departmental Assistant Directors by diverting the amount to other unrelated accounts.
In addition, the CAG’s Audit Report for the period ended March-2021 revealed several irregularities in the implementation of the SRDS scheme viz. non-maintenance of beneficiary wise details, improper record of invoices pertaining to transportation invoices and payments, payments against invoices containing fake/ passenger vehicles/ non-transport vehicle registration numbers, duplicate tags allotted to sheep units, sheep units allotted to dead/ non-existent persons, etc.
The agency said that the CAG’s audit report is limited to only 7 districts out of 33 in the state, wherein the estimated loss to the government was pegged at Rs 253.93 Crore. On a proportionate basis for all the 33 districts in the entire state of Telangana, the loss is likely to exceed Rs 1000 crore.
The search operations led to the recovery and seizure of incriminating material evidencing transactions indicating illegal payments in the form of kickbacks to various government officials and others. Additionally, documents pertaining to numerous bank accounts, including blank cheque books, passbooks and debit cards associated with over 200 suspected dummy/mule accounts linked to an illegal online betting application, were recovered from one of the premises.
Searches also led to the seizure of 31 used mobile phones and over 20 SIM cards, which are suspected to have been utilised in the operation of the illegal activities.