Agro equipment subsidy fraud: EOW nabs 1 more accused, total arrests now at 5

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Bhubaneswar on Wednesday arrested one more accused in the agro-equipment subsidy fraud. The accused, Prahallad Meshua, has been arrested from Bheden in Bargarh district.

Earlier, the EOW had arrested five persons including the main accused Srinath Rana in connection with the case. The case was filed in 2021 by K.G. Sree Charan, Director of M/s Varushapriya Agrotech Pvt. Ltd. Bangalore.

As per the allegation, the prime accused Srinath Rana, who was the Ex- Regional Manager of this company, misappropriated subsidy amount of Rs 5 crore by fraudulently using the company’s login ID and password. During the period from 2017-21, the accused Srinath Rana without the knowledge of the firm, entered into a criminal conspiracy with the arrested accused Prahallad Meshua, proprietor of Subhalaxmi Traders, Bargarh, and other fraudsters.

They fraudulently uploaded the details of more than 556 paddy trans-planters with fake engine and chassis number of machinery, names and photos of farmers/beneficiaries purportedly showing issue/supply of those trans-planters to the said farmers, in the DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) portal of Agriculture Department of Odisha government and managed to get release of subsidy amount to the tune of about Rs 7.16 crore.

Soon after the credit of subsidy amounts in the accounts of beneficiary farmers, the accused persons used to lure the beneficiaries by giving them some token amount and were grabbing the major subsidy amount.

"It has been learnt that the cost of the trans-planter ranges from Rs 2.33 to Rs.3 lakh and against each machinery, the state government was releasing subsidy amount ranging from Rs 93,320 to Rs 1.50 lakh,” EOW said in a release.