The State Goods and Services Tax (SGST) department has kicked-off Statewide raids against a reportedly organised racket engaged in the manufacture and sale of spurious diesel.
Around 500 officers of the Intelligence and Enforcement divisions of the department are carrying out inspections in around 40 locations, including manufacturing units and residences of middlemen, in eight districts.
According to a senior department official, these units were involved in recycling industrial waste oil, adding chemicals to it and selling it as ‘biodiesel.’ Their customers were mainly fishing boat operators and quarry/crusher units which use it as fuel. The racket has also been causing significant tax loss to the State.
In the Kanjikode industrial area of Palakakad district alone, 13 units, many of which operated under the name of ‘biorefinery,’ were raided. In Ernakulam district, the inspections covered 16 locations, most of them in north Kalamassery area. Four locations in Thrissur, three in Malappuram, and one each in Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam, Kollam and Kozhikode were raided on Tuesday.
The inspections were still underway at the time of filing this report.
The SGST department’s operation, christened Fuego Marino, was launched on Tuesday morning. A senior SGST official said that there was every reason to suspect an organised setup behind the racket.
The units were under close watch for the past three to four months.
Tax loss to the State aside, it is also suspected that profits from the illegal business were being channelled to a money laundering racket as well, the department said in a statement. Besides, the use of such illegal fuels could cause damage to the environment as well as the machinery that it is used to operate, the department said.
The department’s intelligence wing is also examining whether the racket has interstate connections.
Source from: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/state-gst-department-busts-spurious-diesel-network/article69626111.ece
