By Biswanath Dash
BHUBANESWAR: Economic Offences Wing of CID-CB of Odisha Police, have arrested accused Pradeep Kumar Acharya, the MD of M/s Annapurna Agro International Pvt. Ltd., Prabha Ranjan Dash, proprietor M/s Dash Traders & Agro Agency and Shaik Fayaz, proprietor of M/s Shaik Fayaz from Bhubaneswar, Daspalla and Berhampur respectively on 16.12.2022 in connection with EOW PS Case No.20 dt.07.11.2022 U/s 420/467/468/471/120-B IPC and Sec.66 of IT Act, 2000, and the arrested accused persons will be forwarded to SDJM, Bhubaneswar today i.e. on 17.12.2022.
The above case has been registered on the basis of a complaint/ enquiry report submitted by Dy.S.P, A.K. Mishra of EOW, Bhubaneswar, who in course of his investigation into a similar case videEOW PS Case No.07 of 2021 came to know about the commission of another similar fraud by the presentaccused persons in conspiracy with each other in misappropriating the Govt. subsidy meant for thefarmers/beneficiaries amounting to at least Rs.12 Crores by manufacturing and using forged documents/email ID, UTR etc.
Investigation of the case conducted so far reveals that the arrested accused Pradeep Kumar Acharya is the MD of M/s Annapurna Agro International Pvt. Ltd., Balasore. The firm is registered under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme, both as manufacturer and dealer of Agro implements like post harvest machines, power driven equipment and rotavator etc. The company has appointed 115 no. of dealers throughout Odisha.
Accused Pradeep Kumar Acharya, MD of M/s Annapurna Agro International Pvt. Ltd. in active connivance with the dealers including the present accused persons namely, Prabha Ranjan Dash, proprietor of M/s Dash Traders & Agro Agency, Khordha and Shaik Fayaz, proprietor of M/s Shaik Fayaz, Berhampur, during the FY 2016-17 to 2019-20, has uploaded a series of false/fake invoices/data/information/UTR in respect of supply/ sale of approx. 381 Agro equipment to equal number of farmers/ beneficiaries and managed to avail subsidy amount to the tune of Crores under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme and misappropriated the subsidy amount.
Pursuant to their conspiracy, the accused manufacturer-cum-dealer M/s Annapurna Agro International Pvt. Ltd. and its two above mentioned dealers in order to perpetrate the fraud have uploaded fake invoices, photo 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 persons fraudulently have shown to have sold/supplied more number of agro equipment than they have actually supplied. In many cases, even no equipment has at all been supplied but by using the fake/false UTRs they have managed to avail the subsidy amount on that.It has also been ascertained that before the subsidy amount was being credited to the
account of beneficiary/ farmer, the accused persons, in some cases, have collected the advance cheque from the beneficiaries under allurement in order to withdraw the total subsidy amount. They used to take away major subsidy amount from the beneficiaries by this devious means by paying some meagre 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. During investigation, many incriminating documents have been seized. The investigation of the case is on.
