BHOPAL: Subsidised rice despatched to empanelled ethanol plants in MP is allegedly being diverted to private mills, reintroduced into the procurement and custom milling cycle and sold back to govt agencies, police said on Friday after forming an SIT to probe the suspected racket.The trigger for the criminal investigation was a Food Corporation of India (FCI) complaint about a consignment meant for an ethanol unit in Chhindwara never reaching its destination. Police traced the missing batch of subsidised rice to a mill in Balaghat, adding grist to suspicion about a statewide nexus involving transporters, rice mills and ethanol companies.Four people have been arrested in the case so far amid multiple complaints of alleged diversion of rice sanctioned under an ongoing subsidy scheme to ramp up production of ethanol for blending with petrol.“We will get to the root of this,” IGP (Balaghat range) Lalit Shakyawar said of racketeers exploiting the Centre’s ethanol procurement policy.FCI supplies “fair average quality and custom milled rice” to empanelled ethanol plants at subsidised rates.The SIT probe has revealed that a diverted consignment can be recycled multiple times, in which case the govt would unwittingly end up paying four to six times the original price for that quantity.The Balaghat FIR names Rahul Pratap, authorised representative of AVJ Agrico Private Ltd’s ethanol plant at Borgaon in Chhindwara, truck driver Durgesh Shende and rice mill owner Saurabh Sancheti.The case was registered after a truck laden with 242 quintals of rice — sent from the FCI depot at Navegaon — was allegedly found parked inside Sancheti Rice Mill in Waraseoni. Officials said three trucks left the FCI depot for the Chhindwara ethanol plant the same day, but only one was intercepted. Investigators believe the case is “the tip of the iceberg”, citing similar complaints elsewhere.
