Bhubaneswar, Sep 17 (Representative) Economic Offences Wing, (EOW) Bhubaneswar has arrested one Lenin Choudhury, on the charge of misappropriating government subsidy to the tune of Rs six crore. Mr Choudhury, a resident of Pakelpada under Mahulpali Police station of Sambalpur district had misappropriated the subsidy money of the government for paddy transplanters. EOW sources said he was arrested U/s 409/420/468/471/120-B IPC r.w. Sec. 66, 66 (C) & 66 (D) of IT Act, 2000 yesterday on the basis of a complaint filed by Director Varushapriya Agrotech Pvt. Ltd. K G Sree Charan. He is being forwarded to the court of SDJM, Bhubaneswar today. Earlier, one Srinath Rana was arrested in this case and forwarded to court. He is still in judicial custody.
In the FIR Mr Charan alleged that Srinath Rana, a former Regional Manager in the company has misappropriated subsidy amount of Rs 5 crore extended by the government by using the Company’s login ID fraudulently. During the investigation, it was found that M/s Varushapriya Agrotech Pvt. Ltd. was supplying paddy transplanters to the farmers across the country and also delivering services and supplies to the Odisha Government under various subsidized schemes to promote agriculture. Mr Rana, was authorised to register the sale of machinery in Odisha and to facilitate subsidies to the beneficiaries by accessing the Odisha government Agriculture Department website www.agrisnetodisha.ori.nic.in by using the login id and password meant exclusively for M/s Varushapriya Agrotech Pvt. Ltd. company. Investigation revealed that from 2017 to 2021, accused Rana, Proprietor of M/s Tarini Auto Agency, Balasore, also the authorized dealer of M/s Varushapriya Agrotech Pvt. Ltd. in criminal conspiracy with Lenin Choudhury, and others had fraudulently uploaded the details of more than 500 paddy transplanters with fake engine & chassis numbers of machineries and showed them as sold by their agencies to farmers.
He managed to get release of subsidy amount to the tune of about Rs 6 crore in favour of the farmers by the Government. Soon after the subsidy amounts were released in accounts of beneficiary farmers, the accused in a criminal conspiracy with others lured the beneficiary by giving them some token amount and grabbed the subsidy amount. It has been learnt that the cost of each paddy transplanter was ranging from Rs 2.33 lakhs to 3 lakhs approximately and against each machinery, the government was releasing subsidy amounts ranging from Rs 93,320 to Rs 1.50 lakh. Out of the above mentioned 500 paddy transplanters, 131 transplanters shown to have been sold by M/s Khushi Agrotech, Gobindpur, Sambalpur, owned by accused Lenin Choudhury. Against the supply of 131 transplanters, a subsidy amounts to the tune of about Rs 1.32 crore were released in favour of the farmers by the government. The accused Srinath Rana in a criminal conspiracy with Lenin Choudhury and thus had cheated the complainant company as well as the Odisha government and misappropriated the subsidy amount. In the process, no paddy-transplanter was purchased but the entire subsidy amount was siphoned off by the two accused.