EOW Arrests Another Man in ₹ 12 Cr Subsidy Fraud Case

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Crime Branch arrested a man for being allegedly involved in an agro equipment subsidy fraud of Rs 12 crore.

The accused was identified as Chautura Deep, Proprietor of M/s KBK Deep Agro Sales, Dunguripali, Sonepur.

He was apprehended under Sections 420/467/468/471/120-B of the IPC and Section 66 of the IT Act. Deep was produced before the Court of SDJM here today.

The case was registered on the basis of a written report submitted by Deputy SP AK Mishra of EOW, Bhubaneswar, who in the course of his investigation came to know about the commission of another similar fraud by MD 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 Rs 12 crores by manufacturing and using forged documents/ email ID, UTR, etc.

Deep is the proprietor of M/s KBK Deep Agro Sales, registered dealer of M/s 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, and rotavator, etc. The company has appointed 115 dealers throughout Odisha, and in active connivance with the dealers including Deep during the FY 2016-17 to 2019-20 uploaded a series of false/ fake invoices/ data/ information/ UTR pertaining to supply/ sale of around 1766 agro equipment to an equal number of farmers/ beneficiaries and managed to avail subsidy amounting to the tune of crores of rupees under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme. The amount was misappropriated by the manufacturing farm and its dealers.

Pursuant to their conspiracy, the accused manufacturer-cum-dealer M/s 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 Nos. etc. in the DBT portal meant for Govt. 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 Crores approx. which has been misappropriated by the MD 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 major subsidy amounts from the beneficiaries fraudulently by paying some meager amount to such farmers/beneficiaries. Finding the irregularities, the Dept. of Agriculture has blocked the manufacturing accused company M/s Annapurna Agro International Pvt. Ltd. in its DBT portal.