BHUBANESWAR: The economic offences wing (EOW) of the state Crime Branch on Wednesday arrested a Bargarh-based businessman on charges of fraudulently siphoning government subsidies to the tune of nearly Rs 3.49 crore on the pretext of selling agricultural machineries and equipment to farmers.
The accused was identified as Kamaljeet Singh (23).
The EOW is looking for his elder brother Harpal (27) in connection with the alleged fraud.
The accused brothers had allegedly posed as senior executives of Redlands Ashlyn Motors PLC, a Kerala-based company, dealing with farm equipment, while committing the fraud.
They had forged the documents of the company and managed to obtain registration from the Odisha agriculture department by claiming to be an authorized dealer in the field.
The accused had uploaded fake documents relating to the sale of rice transplanter machines to 278 farmers of Bargarh, Balangir, Sambalpur and Sonepur districts on the direct benefit transfer (DBT) portal of the government between 2018 and 2020.
They had also uploaded fake engine and chassis numbers of the machines as well as the photographs of the beneficiaries on the government portal, an EOW officer said.
Without verifying the authenticity of the documents, the government had released subsidy amounts ranging between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh in the bank accounts of the 278 farmers.
The accused had misled the farmers and had offered them Rs 5,000 each.
Kamaljeet had told the farmers that his account had some technical problems and that his relatives would send some money to their accounts on his behalf.
Kamaljeet had assured Rs 5,000 each to the farmers for withdrawing the money for him.
The gullible farmers did so for Rs 5,000 gain.
The farmers were unaware of his conspiracy, the EOW officer said.
Without any sale or purchase of any farm equipment, the Singh brothers embezzled government subsidies to the tune of around Rs 3.49 crore.
The government later came to know about the fraud and blacklisted Redlands Ashlyn Motors PLC.
The surprised Kerala-based company understood the modus operandi and lodged a complaint with the EOW in April this year.
The company has also informed the state agriculture department about its innocence in the matter.