The police on Tuesday registered criminal cases against the five fair price shop dealers who were found guilty in drawing rice and other essential commodities by punching Aadhaar card details of beneficiaries on the e-pos machines.
According to a team of revenue officials who probed the case, the dealers of the shop No. 5, 9, 14, 37, 38, 40 and 41 in Machilipatnam town have been found drawing the ration quota of 332 families in September. Machilipatnam tehisildar B. Naradhamuni on Tuesday told newsmen that the accused had been identified as M. Subba Rao, K Bapuji, Naga Venkata Parvathi, Ch. Sujatha and Adapa Gopichand.
The officials were informed about the scandal by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) authorities based on the details shown in the e-pos machines operated by these dealers. The dealers had punched the Aadhaar details of the beneficiaries on e-pos machines to draw the ration and later manipulated the data.
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The police have already arrested two dealers. “The malpractice has been traced out through the e-pos system in Machilipatnam and Vijayawada. The licence of the dealers will be cancelled,” Krishna Collector Babu A. said.