Summary:
Aurangabad: The Nanded police that busted the pan-India scam involving illegal diversion of subsidised food grains meant for Public Distribution System (PDS), has found that out of the 10 trucks caught while diverting these food grains, seven were meant for Hingoli and three for Nanded districts. Each of the tucks were carrying about 17 tonnes of subsidised wheat. The development has directly brought these authorities under scanner.“As per the collected records, out of the 10 seized trucks carrying subsidised grains, seven were meant for Hingoli PDS and three for Nanded PDS,” Nanded superintendent of police Chandrakishore Mina said.The officer said that the process of reviewing the records with the FCI as well as that of the respective DSOs is underway.The trucks were loaded following the directives of the district supply officers of the two districts. They left for their respective destinations, but ended up at the storage facility of India Mega Agro Anaj Ltd, a mega agro processing unit situated in a food park based in Krushnur industrial area of Nanded district.In all over 6,000 gunny bags containing subsidised grains that were meant for distribution in the states of Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra have been found at the godown of the food park, leaving the authorities stunned.In this case, the subsidised grains from the food and public distribution department of India are received by the Food Corporation of India and stored at the Central Warehousing Corporation owned warehouse in Nanded.In all, four agencies including Nanded district supply office, Nanded Zilla Parishad, Women and Child welfare department and the district supply office collect their respective amount of subsidised grains from the warehouse, where they appoint a dedicated officer of their respective departments to maintain the records of all the grains received, transferred and distributed.A case against all the owners of the warehouse as well as the transport contractors has been registered under sections of IPC 420 (cheating) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy), apart from sections of Essential Commodities Act, at Kuntur police station of Nanded.Investigation officer and local crime branch inspector Rajendra Sahane said that the efforts are on to nab Baheti and Tapadiya, who since the registration of offence, are absconding..