Continuing its drive against lPG cylinder black marketers, a joint special squad of Civil Supplies Department and Vigilance police personnel raided two places of Angul district and seized around 360 lPG cylinders, including 350 empty ones, exposing rampant corruption in the Ujjwala scheme in the home district of senior BJP leader and Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
While the special squad in the presence of a Magistrate seized 350 empty cylinders at a remote village of Sarulia of Angul block, 10 filled cylinders were seized at Jukub.
The administration also sealed the storehouse of the Maa Budhi Indane Gas owned by BJP leader Santosh Naik.
An FIR has been lodged against Sudhakar Sahu of Changudia village of Chhendipada block from whom the squad had seized 73 Indane lPG cylinders on Wednesday.
The weeklong raid and seizure of huge numbers of lPG cylinders in Angul district has exposed massive corruption in the Ujjwala scheme.
Recently, thousands of lPG cylinders were distributed under the Ujjwala scheme to BPl families. A black-marketers’ racket in connivance with some lPG dealers has taken the cylinders from some BPl beneficiaries on payment of some money. Due to lack of awareness, the poor people have sold the cylinders to them.
Most of the gas dealers in Angul district belong to the BJP, for which Dharmendra Pradhan now faces huge embarrassment.
last week, the Vigilance police have filed cases against Union Minister Pradhan’s elder brother Soumendra Pradhan and another person, Ajit Mishra, brother of Angul BJP Mandal president Biswajit Mishra, allegedly for black-marketing.