Hyderabad:
Cracking a whip on
benami (persons with fictitious identity) liquor shop owners in Andhra Pradesh, the Anti-Corruption Bureau has come across as many as 406 instances in four districts where traders have been found to be white ration card holders.
The ACB stumbled upon the "fraud" during the searches it conducted recently in districts of West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur and Prakasam in connection with auctioning of liquor shops.
The searches came close on the heels of a similar instance where owners of 103 of Vizianagaram district's 202 liquor shops were found to be white ration card holders. A case was registered in this regard on March 27.
The ACB launched a drive in January to expose the alleged nexus among liquor syndicates, politicians and excise officials.
In the wake of a controversy after ACB carried out searches in different districts against liquor syndicates, particularly in Vizianagaram district, the ACB Director General Boobathi Babu said in an official release that the "agency never focussed the investigation on a particular district or a group of persons nor has it acted at the behest of anyone".
In West Godavari district, 41 per cent of total 473 licensees, which comes to 79 in total, possessed white ration cards whereas in Krishna district 138 owners are holders of white ration cards and shops were allotted in their names.
In Guntur and Prakasham districts, 104 out of 342 and 85 out of 321 license holders, respectively, were found to be in possession of white ration cards.