One person arrested by EOW for misappropriating govt subsidy of Rs 6 cr

Bhubaneswar, Sep 17: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Crime Branch has arrested a person for allegedly misappropriating government subsidy amounting to Rs 6 crore. The accused has been identified as Lenin Choudhury, a resident of Pakelpada under Mahulpali police limits of Sambalpur district. K.G. Sree Charan, Director of Varushapriya Agrotech Pvt. Ltd., Bengaluru had filed a complaint with the Bharatpur police. He alleged that one Srinath Rana, who was earlier working as Regional Manager of the company, misappropriated subsidy amount of Rs 5 crore extended by the government by fraudulently using the company’s login ID. During investigation, it was ascertained that the company has its branch office at Baramunda, Bhubaneswar dealing with the business of supply of paddy transplanters to the farmers across the country. It was also delivering services and supplies to Odisha government under various subsidized schemes in order to promote agriculture. Accused Srinath Rana was authorised to register the sale of machineries in Odisha and to facilitate subsidies to the beneficiaries/ farmers by accessing the Odisha government’s Agriculture Department website by using the login ID and password meant exclusively for the company. During the period from 2017 to 2021, accused Srinath Rana, Proprietor of M/s Tarini Auto Agency, Balasore, who also happens to be the authorized dealer of M/s Varushapriya Agrotech Pvt. Ltd. and in the capacity of Regional Manager of the complainant firm, without the knowledge of the said complainant firm, in criminal conspiracy with accused Lenin Choudhury, proprietor of M/s Khushi Agrotech, Gobindpur, Sambalpur and others had fraudulently uploaded the details of more than 500 paddy transplanters with fake engine and chassis numbers of machineries and names and photos of equal numbers of farmers/ beneficiaries covering 18 districts of Odisha, purportedly showing issue/ supply of those transplanters to the said farmers, in the above mentioned DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) Portal of Agriculture Department and against that managed to get release of subsidy amount to the tune of about Rs 6 crore in favour of the farmers/ beneficiaries by the government. Soon after the release/ credit of subsidy amounts in accounts of beneficiary farmers, the accused in a criminal conspiracy with others lured the beneficiaries by giving them some token amount and was grabbed the subsidy amount.