Hans News Service Hyderabad

Centralprobing agency Enforcement Directorate (ED) is likely to launch an investigation into the multi-crore Custom Milled Rice (CMR) scam in Telangana.

The Telangana Civil Supplies Department has reportedly made an appeal to the central agency to probe the entire episode, following allegations of money laundering by some of the defaulting rice millers, who have indulged in the rice scam since 2014, i.e. under the erstwhile Bharat Rashtra Samithi regime and in the present Congress dispensation. “The Civil Supplies Department is preparing to act against rice millers who are accused of defaulting on substantial amounts of government-supplied paddy dues. The Department has already submitted to the ED a list of 20 such millers who owe huge amounts to the government,” sources told The Hans India.

Officials suspect that these millers have deliberately withheld the paddy dues owed to the government. Furthermore, official sources said: “The millers engaged in illicit fund-raising and money laundering (hawala) activities linked to their paddy/rice transactions.”

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