Hyderabad: The Telangana Agriculture Department has clarified that SMS messages claiming that Rythu Bharosa funds have been released are fake and unauthorised. The department has urged farmers not to believe such messages, which were reportedly received by farmers in some districts on Wednesday.
According to the officials, it came to know that messages related to the Rythu Bharosa scheme had been delivered to approximately 2,73,128 farmers. Following discussions with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the National Informatics Centre (NIC), the messages were found to be completely false and baseless.
Telangana Director of Agriculture B Gopi, clarified that the department had neither initiated nor authorised any such SMS communication to farmers.
In a letter dated November 4 addressed to the Director General of Police, Cyber Crime Wing, Director requested a detailed investigation into the origin of the messages and identification of the agency or individuals responsible for sending them.
The department has also sought an investigation into possible unauthorised access or misuse of the C-DAC SMS Service Portal or other SMS gateways, along with an examination of technical details, including sender IDs, transmission logs and IP addresses.
The department stated that such unauthorised messages could create confusion among farmers and adversely affect the credibility of the department and the Rythu Bharosa scheme. It requested the Cyber Crime Wing to treat the matter as urgent and initiate appropriate legal action against those responsible.