Cyberabad police busts spurious cotton seeds supplying racket

As a proactive approach towards curbing the spurious cotton seeds, acting on a specific information, the sleuths of Special Operations Team (SOT), Shamshabad Zone along with officials of Agricultural Department and Nandigama Police conducted surprise and joint interception and nabbed 3 persons near Mekaguda X road under the limits of Nandigama Police Station while they were transporting spurious cotton seeds in order to sell the same to gullible farmers.

The police seized 54 bags containing around 3 tons of spurious (BT-3) cotton seeds which was banned by the government. The accused were identified as Phanidarapu Venkateshwar Rao, C Ganga Reddy and Papireddygari Ramesh.

According to the sources, The accused Ganga Reddy has been working as a cotton seed suplier for the seed company namely Max Yield Bio Genetic Pvt.ltd and also having own Ginning Mill.

As part of his work, he used to collect the foundation seed from the seed companies and the same was being given to the farmers and looking care of the crops. After yielding the cotton crop, the same is being brought to his ginning Mill for separation of seed.

After this process he gives the seed to the above said company for germination test. In the process of the said business, Ganga Reddy met with one Phanidarapu Venkateshwar Rao in the year 2020, Venkateswar Rao gave BT-III/HT cotton to Ganga Reddy for ginning and acid processing for which 20 bags of seed was processed. Due to covid pandemic, he kept the same at Ganga Reddy Ginning Mill.

In the present year, since there is a huge demand for BT-III Cotton Seed in Telangana, Venkateswar Rao hatched a plan to sell the old seed and gain money. Then Ramesh Reddy also colluded with Ganga Reddy and Venkateswar Rao and gave 2 tons of BT-III/ contaminated cotton seed to them from his working company for his personal monitory benefits.

As per their plan, they engaged a DCM and Car, loaded 3 tons of cotton seed in DCM and 157 Kgs cotton seed worth Rs 80 lakhs in car and were moving from Chikkaballapur, Karnataka to Chennur village, Mancherial of Telangana state. Ganga Reddy and Ramesh were also coming along with Venkateswar Rao to receive money after delivery at Chennur.

On Monday evening hours on credible information, the SOT Shamshabad Zone, officials of Agriculture Department and Nandigama Police intercepted the Car and DCM at Mekaguda X road under Nandigama PS Limits and apprehended them along with 3 tons of spurious cotton seed and seized the same.

The above arrest was made under the supervision of Cyberabad CP Stephen Raveendra, Shamshabad DCP Jagadishwar Reddy, Shadnagar ACP Kushalkar, Agriculture officers Swetha, Inspector of police K. Venkat Reddy and others.