Telangana: 100 kg of wheat seized as PDS racket busted

Hyderabad: A Cyberabad Special Operation Team on Monday busted another PDS supply racket in the Uppal area.

Two persons were arrested and 11 quintal of PDS rice, 100 kg of wheat, 50 kg of tur dal and 240 liter of kerosene were seized.

Based on a tip off, SOT police raided a house at Annapurna Colony in Beerappagadda in Uppal area. Cops arrested Nagilla Santosh, a kirana merchant and one Santosh, who assisted the former. Cops found that the duo would purchase rice, wheat, kerosene and tur dal from a ration dealer, Hanumanthu, in Uppal and from another dealer, Srinu, in the Habsiguda area. Later, the supplies were sold to one Venkatesh and S. Ram Reddy, both residents of Medipally, and to B. Srinivas and B. Sudhakar, residents of Uppal.

“The duo purchased the supplies from Hanumanthu and Srinu and sold them to others at higher rates,” said a senior officer from Cyberabad SOT, adding that six others were absconding.

A case under Section 7 of the Essential Commodities Act and Section 420 of IPC (for cheating) has been registered.

The arrested accused were handed over to the Uppal police for further investigation.

PDS racketeers divert rice from mandal level stock points and from ration shop dealers after purchasing it for Rs 1 per Kg illegally. They then sell it in the black market for higher rates. A large quantity is even exported to other countries.

Senior police officials said that there were many fake ration card holders who bought the rice and sold it to racketeers. In many areas, people choose high quality rice from the market over PDS rice, which results in abundance of rice at stock points.