An agency in the name of ‘Kisan Seva Kendra’ having the website kisansevakendra.org and bearing the Government of India logo has been allegedly running the Kisan Call Centre (KCC) scheme illegally since 2012 and duping job seekers and gullible unemployed youth by asking them to deposit huge sums of money for application form and registration fee. What is even more surprising is that despite many complaints of cheating being reported by the victims, nobody bothered to take action against the fraudsters.
A complaint was forwarded to the Delhi Police after the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) intervened and directed the officials of the Ministry of Agriculture to address the issue at the earliest.
Police sources said over 1,000 people from all over the country have complained of being duped or attempted to be duped.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyber Crime, Anyesh Roy, confirmed that a case has been registered in connection in this regard, however, no arrest has been made yet.” The matter is sensitive in nature. We have started investigating the case and are trying to track down the culprits who are absconding,” said the DCP.
Complainants alleged that for getting employed with the KCC, they were asked for amounts ranging from Rs 9,000 to over Rs 15,000 and at times as much as Rs 25,000 as security money, said a police source.
Describing the modus operandi of the people behind fraud, a police officer said, “Unemployed youths filled up application and registration forms after paying Rs 900. This was a precondition to get an employment. Once the money was deposited, they used to get calls from the agency saying that they were calling from KCC, Sector 41 Chandigarh. The candidates were then made to believe that they were being interviewed over phone. A few days later they called back to inform them that they had passed the interview and got a salaried job. The victims were then asked to deposit a huge sum of amount to a particular bank account as security. They were then provided a Delhi address to collect their offer letters”, the official added.
“Those behind the KCC also provided a defunct mobile number to their targets. The poor victims roamed all around Delhi but could not find the address. When they tried to call on the given phone number, it was found inactive. That is when they realised that they were cheated”, the official said.
“The fraudsters use different method to con people from outside Delhi. They were asked to deposit security amount in a particular account number and were told that a representative of Ministry of Agriculture would come to their home with the offer letters, mobile and laptop for their work but never turned up,” said the police officer.
The KCC — an important body of the Department of Agriculture Cooperation and Farmers Welfare — is run for the benefit of farmers in different parts of the country since 2004.
“The Agriculture department of the Central Government had appointed M/s Iffco Kisan Sanchar limited as service provider for the KCC scheme and also set up infrastructure and recruit agriculture graduates to operate KCC’s at 14 identified locations in the country,” said Director (Extension), Krishi Bhwan, who lodged a formal complaint with the Delhi Police in this regard.
“The accused agency has been portraying as if it is a programme of the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India and in order to mislead people they used the same name ‘Kisan Call Centre’ along with the logo of Government of India. In reality, under this scheme, agents known as Farm Tele Advisors (FTA) are deployed in different parts of India to answer farmers’ agriculture-related queries on a toll free number 1800-180-151” said the director.
A complaint was forwarded to Additional Commissioner off Police, Economic Offences Wing (EOW) unit of the Delhi Police, Suvashish Chowdhury, by the Ministry of Agriculture saying that the said agency is not authorised to run the scheme and is duping innocent people and harming the reputation of the Central Government.
Accordingly, an FIR under Indian Penal Code sections of Cheating, impersonation read with section 66D of the Information Technology Act was registered with Economic Offences Wing and investigation was taken up. Investigators said they have identified the IP addressed and the faces behind this organised fraud. Teams are working to hunt them, a police official tasked with the probe said.