The Stella L ship, which was “seized” based on the orders of Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan, contained a total of 1,320 tonnes of PDS rice meant for the poor, Kakinada District Collector Shan Mohan Sagili told the media on Tuesday, December 17.
Earlier on November 29, authorities found 640 tonnes of PDS rice in the ship. However, the inspection carried out by the multi-disciplinary committee confirmed the presence of another 680 tonnes of rice meant for the poor.
While the Collector had inspected the ship on November 27 and found 640 tonnes of PDS rice, Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan had visited the Kakinada anchorage port two days later on November 29, and ordered that the ship be seized.
All the 1320 tonnes of rice would be unloaded from the ship and seized by the anchorage port. The Collector said that the committee had collected samples from 4,000 tonnes of rice, for 12 hours which led to the discovery of excess rice being smuggled out of the country.
The Collector said that the rice belongs to Satyam Balaji Rice Exports Industries Limited. Investigation is underway to identify where the rice was procured from, he said.
“There was almost 4000 tonnes of white rice on the ship. We took 12 samples, and after testing and verifying them, we found that the ship had 1320 tonnes of PDS rice in total. The bags were from Satyam Balaji Rice Industries Pvt Ltd. We are tracking which mills they sourced the rice from, and which godowns they had stored it in,” the Collector said.
He added that after seizing all the PDS rice from the Stella L ship, the loading of the remaining non-PDS rice will continue. He however said that the decision to release the ship is yet to be made.
On November 29, Andhra Pradesh Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan made a dramatic visit to Kakinada Port and expressed anger over the port authorities and the local MLA for failing to check the smuggling of PDS rice. He had visited the port along with Civil Supplies Minister and Jana Sena Party leader Nandendla Manohar.
The Jana Sena chief pulled up port officials and Kakinada MLA Vanamadi Venkateswara Rao of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in the presence of a large number of people.
The Deputy Chief Minister's visit came two days after the seizure of 640 tonnes of PDS rice at the anchorage port, being exported to West Africa.