Kantabanji: Amid allegations of severe irregularities in registration of farmers’ names for crop insurance, police Monday arrested six persons, including four operators of common service centres (CSC) and two fake farmers, for their alleged involvement in crop insurance irregularities in Bolangir district.
Three CSCs operators – Sanjay Kumar Panda of Kantabanji Road, Niranjan Meher of Badasaimara village under Muribahal block and Jeetendra Behera of Belpada under Bongomunda block were arrested and produced in the court, Sunday. They were remanded to judicial custody after the court rejected their bail pleas.
The crackdown has sparked panic among the fake farmers and the CSC operators involved in crop insurance irregularities in the district
Later, acting on a complaint of Chhabimanyu Putel of Dangamara village, police arrested two fake farmers Jadupati Meher and Prahallad Meher of Chaulasukha village and a CSC operator Bailochan Meher of the same village, Monday. They were produced in the court and remanded to judicial custody.
According to sources, the CSC operators in connivance with fake farmers were involved in issuing fake crop insurance policies against land belonging to actual farmers in and around Turekela, Bongomunda, Muribahal and Kantabanji areas in the district.
During the course of investigation, the police have also exposed the involvement of several other CSCs in such corrupt practices, sources said.
The police action was subsequent to an expose by one Dhanurjay Meher of Chaulasukha village who filed a written complaint in this regard with the Kantabanji police. Earlier, police had arrested three fake farmers Debendra Meher, Bishikesan Meher and Arjun Meher in this connection and produced them in court, last Wednesday.
Reports said that some fake farmers connived with the CSC operators to grab the benefits of crop insurance by forging papers of the farmland belonging to genuine farmers in their name while registering for crop insurance, this year.
Later, when the genuine farmer tried to buy a crop insurance policy, the computers declined the registration. This gave rise to suspicion and the victimised farmers lodged complaints in this regard with their respective tehsildars, agricultural officers as well as at the local police stations.
Further investigation into the matter is on even as the police are trying to bring the accused on remand and question them regarding the irregularities.
Notably, the Jajpur district Collector Sunday suspended three officials, including a junior engineer, for their alleged involvement in irregularities in various developmental projects of Jari panchayat under Binjharpur block in the district.
The suspension of the officials by the Collector came days after villagers staged a protest in front of the panchayat office alleging large-scale irregularities in several projects implemented under MGNREGS scheme in the village.
PNN