Bhubaneswar, Apr 7 (IANS): The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Odisha crime branch has arrested two fraudster brothers for misappropriating government subsidy of Rs 6.81 crores meant for supply of agricultural equipment to farmers, an official said on Thursday.

The accused are Manas Ranjan Dash, director of Sheetal Agro Inputs Pvt. Ltd. and his brother Tapas Kumar Dash, proprietor of Mishita Enterprises, located in Jagatsinghpur district, said Sanjeeb Panda, additional director general (ADG), crime branch.

Both were arrested on Wednesday and are being sent to the court of SDJM, Jagatsinghpur.

The accused showed the delivery of 504 agricultural equipment items to beneficiaries by submitting fake invoices and grabbed the lion's share of the subsidy amount, Panda said.

They misappropriated approximately Rs 6.81 cr subsidy meant for the farmers and other beneficiaries, he informed.

During the financial years 2018-2019 & 2019-2020, Manas, in connivance with its eight dealers including his brother's firm uploaded a series of fake invoices for the supply and sale of 504 transplanters to an equal number of farmers belonging to 19 districts of Odisha including Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Balasore, Khurda, Kalahandi and Sambalpur.

They managed to avail a subsidy amount of Rs 6.81 crore under the direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme. Soon after the subsidy amount (for equipment) was credited to the account of the beneficiary farmer, accused Manas and his brother Tapas along with other dealers used to lure the beneficiary to withdraw the total subsidy amount.

They took away a major subsidy amount in cash from the beneficiaries by paying some portion to the beneficiary, the EOW officials said.

In the entire process, the actual machine/transplanter was not manufactured or sold but the subsidy was availed by the beneficiaries, they said.