31 dealers booked over ration distribution fraud in Gautam Buddh Nagar

The Gautam Buddh Nagar administration has filed a complaint against 31 dealers at fair price shops for distributing ration by "rigging" the public distribution system (PDS), officials said today.

"Ration through the PDS is distributed by these dealers using the ePOS (point of sale) machine which is linked to the Aadhaar of the beneficiaries," District Information Officer Rakesh Chauhan said.

"Now what has emerged is that these dealers had attached around 200 Aadhaar numbers to the ePOS machine and distributed the ration to unauthorised accounts," he said.

An FIR was registered yesterday at the Noida Sector 20 police station.

The maximum 20 dealers area in Noida, seven from Greater Noida and four in Dadri area of the district, he said.

The permission for filing the FIR against them was taken from District Magistrate Brajesh Narayan Singh, according to District Supply Officer Raj Narayan Singh.

He said the police were now probing the matter.

The fraudulent distribution of ration comes amid similar reports of large scale pilferage in public distribution system from various parts of Uttar Pradesh, including Ghaziabad, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Allahabad.