Hyderabad: Days after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) pegged the value of the sheep scam at more than Rs 1,000 crore, the agency is set on tracing the kingpins who influenced G. Kalyan Kumar, officer on special duty to then minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav, and the officials down the line who took part in the scam.Two of the main accused are reported to have taken shelter in Gulf nations.Sources said that the officials wanted to question Kalyan Kumar who played a key role in influencing the officials of the Telangana Sheep and Goat Development Cooperative Federation Limited who were running the Sheep Rearing Development Scheme (SRDS).As part of the scam, veterinary officials provided certificates of purchase of sheep without the sheep actually having been bought. The ED’s investigation also substantiated the findings of the Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) report, which identified payments made to fictitious vendors and evidence of recycling of sheep units to fraudulently claim disbursements from the government without actual supply of sheep units.Sources said the ED had studied the CAG reports and came to the conclusion that Kalyan Kumar was alone in diverting funds and that there could be more persons involved in the scam.In 2017, the then BRS government introduced the SRDS for shepherd communities. Each beneficiary was to be given a sheep unit of 20 ewes and a ram. The cost of each unit was Rs 1.25 lakh, 75 per cent (`93,750) to be provided as subsidy and 25 per cent (Rs 31,250) by the beneficiary.The scheme was implemented under the TSGDCFL at state level and district veterinary and animal hsbandry officers (DV&AHOs) in the districts.Sheep were to be purchased from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu in order to avoid recycling and to increase the net sheep population in Telangana. The sheep breeds chosen were Nellore brown (dora), Nellore jodipi (white with black spots on face), Deccani and Madras Red.The CAG reported noted that four lakh sheep units were to be given in two years (2017-18 and 2018-19) at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore. The scheme was to be funded through loans of Rs 3,000 crore and grant of Rs 1,000 crore given by the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) and the remaining Rs 1,000 crore from beneficiary contributions.As per the information furnished by the TSGDCFL, as of December 2021, 3.88 lakh sheep units were supplied to an equal number of beneficiaries at Rs 3,385 crore subsidy.The agencies suspected that during the implementation and fund release, the officials indulged in diverting monies by creating fake invoices on purchases, fake bills in making payments to farmers who sold off the sheep to the government.
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