Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police has arrested another fraudster for his involvement in misappropriating government subsidies of Rs 7.16 crore meant for supply of agricultural equipment to farmers, an EOW official said Friday.
The accused Bidyadhara Behera, proprietor of Kalpana Motors, was arrested from Bhadrak.
During investigation, the EOW found that Varushapriya Agrotech Pvt. Ltd., a Bengaluru-based company having its branch office here at Baramunda, was dealing with the business of supplying paddy transplanters to the farmers across the country and also delivering services and supplies to the Odisha government under various subsidized schemes.
Srinath Rana, prime accused in the case, was earlier working as regional manager in the said company was authorised to register the sale of machinery in Odisha and to facilitate subsidies to the beneficiaries/farmers by accessing the state Agriculture department website.
During the period from 2017-21, accused Srinath Rana having a criminal conspiracy along with the present accused Bidyadhara Behera and others had fraudulently uploaded the details of more than 556 paddy transplanters and equal number of beneficiaries covering 18 districts of Odisha.
The accused did it without the knowledge of the complainant farm, the officials said. By submitting fake documents, the accused managed to get release of subsidy amount to the tune of about Rs 7.16 crore in favour of the beneficiaries.
Soon after the credit of subsidy amounts in accounts of beneficiary farmers, the accused persons in a criminal conspiracy with others, used to lure the beneficiaries by giving them some token amount and were grabbing the subsidy amount, they said.
The cost of the trans-planter ranges from Rs 2.33 lakh to Rs 3 lakh and the government released subsidy amounts ranging from Rs 93,320 to Rs 1.50 lakh.
Out of 556 paddy transplanters, 46 are shown to have been supplied by Bidyadhara Behera, proprietor of Kalpana Motors, who was also the authorised dealer of Varushapriya Agrotech Pvt. Ltd. So far, five accused persons, including main accused Srinath Rana, have been arrested in this case and forwarded to court.
IANS