3 Arrested for Siphoning Govt Subsidy Of Rs 12 Crore in Odisha

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha crime branch has arrested three people for siphoning government subsidies.

They were allegedly misappropriating government subsidies to the tune of over Rs 12 crore meant for the supply of agricultural equipment to farmers.

The accused were identified as Pradeep Kumar Acharya, the MD of Annapurna Agro International Pvt. Ltd., Prabha Ranjan Dash, proprietor of Dash Traders & Agro Agency, and Shaik Fayaz, proprietor of Shaik Fayaz.

They were apprehended from Bhubaneswar, Daspalla in Nayagarh district and Berhampur. They were presented at a local court in Bhubaneswar on Saturday.

During the investigation, it was revealed that Pradeep Acharya’s firm is registered under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme for supplying post-harvest machines, and power-driven equipment.

Acharya with two other accused allegedly uploaded a series of fake documents in respect of the supply/sale of 381 agro equipment to an equal number of farmers between 2016-17 and 2019-20, and grabbed the subsidy amount meant for the beneficiaries.

Reportedly, the accused used to show to have supplied more agro equipment than they actually did. In some cases, no equipment was supplied yet they managed to avail of the subsidy amount using fake documents.

According to sources, they took away major subsidy amounts from the beneficiaries using these devious means by paying some meagre amount to the farmers.