Jagatsinghpur: The Odisha Crime Branch’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) arrested two persons Thursday on the charges of embezzling government subsidy to the tune of Rs 6.81 crore, which was meant for farmers and other beneficiaries.
The two accused are Manas Ranjan Dash and Tapas Kumar Dash. Both the accused are brothers in relation and directors of M/s Sheetal Agro Inputs (P) Limited. The duo is also proprietor of M/s Mishita Enterprises located at Purohitpur in Jagatsinghpur.
A source said that M/s Sheetal Agro is the company owned by Manas and is registered with state Agriculture department under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme as a manufacturing firm of agro-based implements and machines.
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“During FY 2018-2019 and FY 2019-2020, Manas in association with his eight dealers including M/s Mishita Enterprises had uploaded a number of fabricated invoices with regard to the supply of as many as 504 Transplanters (an agricultural machine used for transplanting seedlings to the farmland) to farmers of 19 Odisha districts including Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Balasore, Khurda, Kalahandi and Sambalpur. The fraudster managed to avail subsidy amount of Rs.6,81,53,048 under the DBT scheme, which was disbursed by the Agriculture department in the bank accounts of concerned beneficiaries and embezzled the entire subsidy money,” an EOW official stated.
Out of the total 504 transplanter machines of M/s Sheetal Agro, 337 Transplanters were shown to have been sold by its dealer M/s Mishita Enterprises, the owner of which is Tapas, a press release issued by the EOW mentioned.
The two accused brothers Manas and Tapas received the government subsidy money against manipulated transactions by uploading the fabricated invoices and UTR in the DBT portal.
PNN