Kochi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday registered a case against then senior officer In charge of Indian Farmers Fertilizers Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO) State Office; then Field Officer Incharge (Trainee), Kerala State Cooperative Marketing Federation (Marketfed) and a Transport Contractor in Thrissur on charges of diverting urea to black market, which is a subsidised fertiliser supplied by the Central Government to farmers.
It was alleged that the Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers (Govt. of India) was giving subsidy of around Rs.22,000/-per metric tons(MT) of urea and after subsidy the farmers would get the same at the rate of Rs.5,250/-(approx) per metric ton.
The objective of Central Government giving subsidy to urea was to help the farmers with affordable price and to boost agricultural production.
It was further alleged that the then field officer in connivance with the then officer in charge of IFFCO and the transport contractor had allegedly submitted bogus bills in the names of 31 Cooperative Societies in and around Trichur, showing the supply of urea to these societies without actually supplying the urea to them and thereby diverting the same to some industrial companies for illegal monetary benefits as the price of the Industrial Urea was around Rs.27,000/-(approx) per tons.
During the period from April, 2015 to January, 2016 around 1096 metric tonnes of urea have allegedly not been utilized properly by raising bogus bills in favour of these cooperative societies. An alleged loss of Rs.2.41 crore(approximately) by way of subsidies for diverted urea was caused to government exchequer.
Searches were conducted at six places in Thrissur at the premises of accused which led to recovery of several incriminating documents.
Further investigation is going on in this regard. (ANI)