Hyderabad: The unholy nexus between corrupt civil supplies officials and rice millers in the districts has been facilitating easy diversion of PDS rice, causing losses to the government, depriving the poor of the rice they are entitled to, and enriching the cheats.
Despite finding huge variations in rice stocks in mills and PDS godowns, civil supply officials colluded with the godown in-charges and the millowners and did not alert the department.
When he got a tip-off about this nexus, Civil Supplies Commissioner Mr C.V. Anand roped in special vigilance teams from Hyderabad to raid rice mills and thus exposed the cheating that has been going on for years.
One person in charge of a godown in Nagarkurnool was suspended immediately for his role in assisting the scam.
Civil supplies officials and millers were found to be hand in glove to such an extent that the PDS rice that was diverted was sold back to the government.
The search teams found that rice stored in Jadcharla godown in Mahabubnagar district had been diverted from two mills in Nagarkurnool district. The rice is recycled and sold to government again. Some 1080 bags of 50 kg each were sold in this manner. Since PDS rice is filled in distinctive gunny bags, the cheats took the precaution of putting some of the rice in other gunny bags so that it would not be noticed during transportation.
Raids conducted in Siricilla district revealed that millers were supplying inferior quality rice to the PDS.
The rules stipulate that only 10 per cent of the rice can be broken rice. But the raids revealed that more than 35 per cent of it was broken rice.
