WARANGAL: A joint team of civil supplies officials and a task force police conducted raids on rice millers and busted a custom milling rice (CMR) racket. The millers were found defaulting on delivering rice to the government thereby causing huge loss to the exchequer in Warangal district.
After receiving complaints that rice millers divert CMR and some even operate without permission, the joint team conducted raids at several rice mills.
The team on Saturday conducted raids at Balaji Industries at Penchikalpet village in Elkathurthy mandal of Hanamkonda district and noticed that the mill owner has diverted Rs 7.5 crore worth rice to private persons.
The government allotted around 6,339 tonnes of paddy for custom milling to Balaji Industries for two years from 2021-22 to 2022-23. As per the guidelines, the rice mill must hand over around 4.310 tonnes of rice to the government.
But the owners handed over only 1,889 tonnes of rice to the government and diverted 2,421 tonnes of rice to private persons. Even after orders to deliver rice, the mill owners did not respond.
Then the officials of the civil supplies department led by enforcement department special officer L. Lakshma Reddy conducted raids and found that around Rs 7.5 crore worth CMR are missing.
After seizing the records from the rice mills, they directed the police to lodge a criminal case against the owner, Ravinder Reddy.
Officials also conducted raids at Sri Lakshmi Parboiled rice mills belonging to the former BRS minister Redya Naik on the outskirts of Yellampet village in Maripeda mandal of Mahabubabad district.
After inspecting all the records, the officials identified that around Rs 6 crore worth of CMR is missing from the mill. After seizing the records, the officials directed the police to lodge a criminal case against the owner.
