PDS kerosene racket busted in Odisha

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Brahmapur, Aug 23:

The district administration in Odisha’s Ganjam district today seized 6,000 litres of PDS kerosene during surprise raids on three places in Brahmapur city leading to busting of a well organised racket involved in smuggling of PDS kerosene to neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

The district administration has also seized a truck and detained one person during the raids.

It is surprising that no one in the administration had any inkling of such large scale black marketing and smuggling of PDS kerosene although the racket was operating for a long time.

Acting on a tip off, the district administration raided three locations in the city’s Goodshed Road area today.

While 3,600 litres of PDS kerosene stored in 36 barrels were seized from one house, a truck carrying kerosene to Andhra Pradesh was seized from another location and barrels carrying 1,675 litres were seized from a locked house in front of the Bharat Petroleum depot, official sources said.

“We had information of black marketing in PDS kerosene. We raided three places and have seized huge quantities of it.  It’s a well organized racket we have even seized a fire extinguisher from one location. It was being used for adulteration in petrol and diesel and also for smuggling to Andhra Pradesh”, said Bijay Kumar Dash, Sub-collector Brahmapur.

“We have seized around 6,000 litres of kerosene from three different places. One person has been detained in this connection and he is being interrogated. A truck carrying kerosene to Andhra Pradesh has been seized”, said Nilakanth Mohanty, district supplies officer.

A few days ago a racket involved in black marketing PDS wheat was busted in the city, said sources.

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