In an alleged ₹1,000 crore scam unearthed recently in Telangana, the dead shepherds were included among the beneficiaries and the money , meant for the welfare of the sheep-rearing communities, was swindled by officials and others operating as well-oiled machinery. The shocking details have come to light pointing to an elaborate fraud in the implementation of the sheep distribution scheme, introduced during the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) regime.
The initiative, launched in 2017 amid much fanfare by the then Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, was meant to help over 7.30 lakh shepherd families, belonging to Yadava and Kurma communities in the state, and to revive and encourage traditional occupations. A total of ₹12,000 crore budgetary allocation was made in two phases, and over 1.5 crore sheep were distributed. The animals were procured from the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra.
Following allegations of massive irregularities in the scheme, the Congress government, which took over the reins in December 2023, ordered a probe. An FIR was registered at Gachibowli police station in Hyderabad in relation to the scheme.
The case was transferred to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), which registered an FIR based on a CAG audit report of March 2021 that flagged “irregularities” in the implementation of the scheme. The alleged irregularities included non-maintenance of beneficiary details, improper record of invoices, and duplicate tags allotted to sheep units.
The ACB also took note of allegations that sheep units were allotted to families that did not exist, or were allotted in the name of a deceased head of a family.
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Kalyan Kumar and Ramchander Naik, former CEO of Animal Development Corporation and former MD of the State Sheep and Goat Development Association; D Ravi Kumar and M Aditya Keshav Sai, two former assistant directors from the state animal husbandry department; and 11 others have been arrested in this case.
Digging deep into the scam, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the ACB have now estimated that ₹1,000 crore may have been misused by officials and others involved in the irregularities.
The ED sleuths conducted searches at multiple places recently and recovered several incriminating documents, providing clues about illegal transactions in the form of kickbacks to various government officials and others. Additionally, documents pertaining to numerous bank accounts, including blank cheque books, passbooks and debit cards associated with over 200 suspected dummy/mule accounts linked to an illegal online betting application, were recovered from one of the premises.
The ED has initiated a probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The CAG’s Audit Report for the period ended March-2021 revealed several irregularities in the implementation of the scheme including non-maintenance of beneficiary wise details, improper record of invoices pertaining to transportation and payments, duplicate tags allotted to sheep units and sheep units allotted to dead or non-existent persons.
The investigators point out that the CAG’s audit report was limited to only 7 out of 33 districts in the state, wherein the estimated loss to the government was pegged at ₹253.93 Crore. On a proportionate basis for all the 33 districts in the entire state of Telangana, the loss is likely to exceed ₹1,000 crore.
In a separate case registered at Nampally Police Station in Hyderabad, it was alleged that G Kalyan Kumar, former Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to former Bharat Rashtra Samithi Animal Husbandry Minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav, and three aides trespassed into the Animal Husbandry Department on December 10, three days after the Congress government came to power, destroyed documents, damaged computer hard drives, and deleted CCTV data.
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