EOW Arrests One More Dealer in Multi Crore Agro-Equipment Subsidy Fraud

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police has arrested one more dealer in connection with the multi crore agro-equipment subsidy fraud in Odisha.

The accused has been identified as Chautura Deep, Proprietor of KBK Deep Agro Sales, Dunguripalli.

Deep was nabbed from Dunguripalli, Sonepur in connection with a case (No.20 dt.07.11.2022) lodged at the EOW police station in Bhubaneswar under Sections 420/467/468/471/120-B IPC and Section 66 of IT Act, 2000

The case has been registered on the basis of a written report submitted by Deputy SP, AK Mishra of EOW, Bhubaneswar, who in the course of his investigation into EOW police station Case No.07 of 2021 came to know about the commission of another similar fraud by the managing director of M/s Annapurna Agro International Pvt Ltd in conspiracy with its dealers in misappropriating the government subsidy meant for the farmers/beneficiaries on purchase of agro equipment amounting to about Rs 12 crore by manufacturing and using forged documents/email ID, UTR, etc, the EOW said.

KBK Deep Agro Sales is a registered dealer of Annapurna Agro International Pvt. Ltd., Balasore, which is a manufacturing unit of agro equipment. The firm is registered under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme, both as a manufacturer and dealer of Agro implements like post-harvest machines, power-driven equipment, rotavator, etc. The company has appointed 115 dealers throughout Odisha, and in active connivance with the dealers including the present accused Chautura Deep has uploaded a series of false/fake invoices/data/information/UTR pertaining to the supply/sale of about 1,766 agro equipment during the FY 2016-17 to 2019-20 to an equal number of farmers/ beneficiaries and managed to avail subsidy amount to the tune of crores under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme and the amount was misappropriated by the manufacturing farm and its dealers.

Pursuant to their conspiracy, the accused manufacturer-cum-dealer Annapurna Agro International Pvt. Ltd. and dealer Chautura Deep in order to perpetrate the fraud have uploaded fake invoices, photos of the implements with beneficiaries, UTR numbers, etc. in the DBT portal meant for a government subsidy for farm implements and thereby grabbed the subsidy amount meant for the beneficiaries/farmers. The accused has fraudulently shown to have sold/supplied 487 agro equipment involving the subsidy amount of Rs 3.54 crore which has been misappropriated by the managing director of the manufacturing firm and the arrested accused dealer. For this purpose, the accused has uploaded fake/false UTRs in the DBT portal to get the subsidy amount released.

It has been ascertained that before the subsidy amount was credited to the account of the beneficiary/ farmer, the accused persons, in some cases, collected the advance cheque from the beneficiaries under allurement in order to withdraw the total subsidy amount. They used to take away a major subsidy amount from the beneficiaries fraudulently by paying some meager amount to such farmers/beneficiaries.

Finding the irregularities, the Department of Agriculture has blocked the manufacturing accused company M/s Annapurna Agro International Pvt. Ltd. in its DBT portal.

Earlier, Pradeep Kumar Acharya, MD of Annapurna Agro International Pvt Ltd, and his two dealers – Prabha Ranjan Dash and Shaik Fayaz were arrested and forwarded in this case.