Bhubaneswar, April 13: Economic Offence Wing (EOW) has arrested one more fraudster for misappropriating Rs.6.81 crore government(Odisha) subsidy meant for supply of agricultural equipment.
EOW sources here on Wednesday said Chandan Sahoo, Proprietor of CS Technologies and dealer of M/s Sheetal Agro Inputs Pvt. Ltd was arrested from Bhubaneswar on Tuesday U/s 420/467/ 468/ 471/ 120B IPC r.w. Sec. 66 of IT Act, 2000 and is being forwarded to the Court of SDJM, Jagatsinghpur on Wednesday.
Earlier, on April 6 last two brothers Manas Ranjan Dash and Tapas Kumar Dash were arrested in connection with the case. While Manas Ranjan Das is the Director of M/s Sheetal Agro Inputs Pvt Ltd, Tapas Kumar Dash is the Proprietor of M/S Mishita Enterprises, Located at Purohitpur, Taradapada in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district.
A case has been registered on the basis of a complaint report submitted by EOW Deputy S.P A.K. Mishra who in course of his investigation in a similar case came to know about the commission of another similar embezzlement by the accused in conspiracy with others. The accused had misappropriated government subsidy meant for the farmers amounting to approximately Rs.6.81 crores by manufacturing and using forged documents, email id, and UTR.
Investigation has revealed that accused Chandan Sahoo, Proprietor of CS Technologies was working as a dealer of M/s Sheetal Agro Inputs Pvt. Ltd., having its office at Purohitpur in Jagatsinghpur district The firm is registered with the Agriculture Department of Odisha government under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme as a manufacturing firm/company of Agro implements like Transplanter machines.
During 2018-2019 and 2019-2020, Manas Ranjan Dash, in active connivance with its eight dealers including Chandan Sahoo has uploaded a series of false invoices, data in respect of supply of 504 Transplanters to equal number of farmers belonging to 19 districts of Odisha. The transplanters were said to have been supplied to 19 districts and the accused managed to avail subsidy amount of Rs.6,81,53,048 under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Scheme. The amount was disbursed in the bank accounts of concerned farmers by the Agriculture Department. It has also been ascertained that out of total 504 transplanter machines only 31 Transplanters are shown to have been sold through its dealer M/s CS Technologies during the FY 2018-2020.
In the entire process actual machines/ transplanters were manufactured nor sold but subsidy was availed by the beneficiaries. The accused has shown false sale of 31 transplanters in the name of different farmers of Puri district.
It has also been ascertained that before the subsidy amount was being credited to the account of the farmer, accused Chandan Sahoo used to lure the beneficiary and was collecting the advance cheque to withdraw the total subsidy amount. He took away a major subsidy amount from them by paying some amounts/ cuts to the concerned farmer. One Laptop of the accused has been seized and the investigation of the case is on.
