PMJAY Fraud (img: Envato Elements)

Perpetrators have yet again got the better of innocent people, as two individuals defrauded a Surat-based businessman of ₹88.10 lakh under the guise of a contract being offered by a semi-government company.

A complaint has been registered on this  on Feb 2, and a probe has been launched  by the Surat crime branch’s economic offence wing (ECO cell).

As per the complaint, Dharmendra Patel, who works as a manager at a coal imports company named Samarth Sai Logistics Pvt Ltd, made a business trip to Kathmandu in Dec 2019, where he met with an individual Sandeep Saini from Rajasthan.

Saini visited Surat in March 2020 when he met the director of Samarth Sai Logistics, Mahesh Patel.

Saini mentioned his close friend, Ramnaresh Thakur alias Ramavtar Thakur, as the director of a semi-government company, the National Federation of Tourism and Transport Co Op India Ltd (NFTCI).

Saini added that NFTCI will shortly bag the contract from the central government for data entry for the ‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana’ (PMJAY) cards.

Saini offered to carry forward this contract to Mahesh’s company for a commission of ₹35 lakh.

Mahesh then transferred the power of attorney (PoA) to Dharmendra for this deal. In Delhi,  he met the accused, Ramnaresh in December 2021.

Ramnaresh offered Dharmendra a contract to cover all the districts of Maharashtra and took ₹53.10 lakh in deposit. Following this deal, the previously agreed-upon commission was also transferred to Saini, catapulting the total sum spent over this deal to ₹88.10 lakh.

However, upon not receiving a work order for this project, Dharmendra grew suspicious and decided to inquire into this matter.

Fraudulent nexus uncovered

Dharmendra got to know that the government has granted the card manufacturing contract to Belapur-based UTI, which has given this contract to NFTCI.

However, he found out that NFTCI was restrained from granting a contract to any company for making these cards or making any such deals.

Following this, he registered a complaint at the Surat crime branch’s ECO cell.

As per sources at the crime branch, a preliminary probe revealed that Ramnaresh Thakur has been locked up in jail for two months over a ₹30 lakh fraud case in Agra.

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