Adding to the agrarian crisis in Prakasam district that has seen a spate of farmers’ suicides of late, a major financial scam running into Rs. 5.63 crore has been unearthed by the police, leaving the ryots in the lurch. This time the perpetrators are the cold storage units operating in and Inkollu, which had secured bank loans by pledging the farm produce stored with them. Forget about repaying the loans, they had sold away the farm produce and neither did the bank officials nor the farmers have a clue about it.
In a similar case, some cold storage units in the district had cheated banks to the tune of Rs. 40 crore last year, but perhaps the lessons have not been learnt.
Police revealed that in some cases, some bank employees had colluded with the cold storage units to sell away the produce. As many as 15 cold storage units pledged the produce stored with them for a prolonged period and secured bank loans worth Rs. 5.63 core.
The scam surfaced when the bank officials inspected the cold storages after the latter had stopped paying instalments, but only to find the stocks were no longer there.
On the basis of complaints lodged by the banks, cases were registered in January and investigation was taken up, says District Crimes Record Bureau (DSP) DSP B. Mariyadas.
G.Satyanarayana, Branch Manager of the Syndicate Bank at Nagulapalem, complained that four partners of a cold storage unit at Pusapadu, along with equal number of farmers, had taken a loan of Rs. 27.61 lakh by pledging the farm produce. As they failed to repay the amount a search was conducted and it was found that the pledged stocks had been sold away without the knowledge of the bank. In a similar way, Inkollu cold storage unit had cheated State Bank of Hyderabad of Rs. 85.82 lakh, complained the its Inkollu branch Manager G. Raja Ramesh Babu.
“Police complaints have been lodged in every case. We will take legal recourse and launch recovery proceedings,” says M. Narasimha Rao, Lead Bank District Manager, adding that departmental action had been initiated against the erring employees too.
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sangam district secretary D. Gopinath says that farmers who had stored their stocks in cold storages expecting that the market price would go up sooner or latter had left in the lurch.
We will take legal recourse and launch recovery proceedings. Departmental action has been initiated against the erring employees too.
- M. Narasimha Rao,
Lead Bank District Manager
