CBI books two cases in Rs 539-crore IDBI fraud in Andhra, Telangana

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked 41 persons including three officials of the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) for cheating the bank to the tune of Rs 539 crore in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The federal agency registered two separate cases relating to large-scale frauds in IDBI branches in the two states in sanctioning pisciculture loans.

In the first case, 31 persons including IDBI's General Manager Battu Rama Rao and former Chief General Manager R. Damodaran, 22 aggregators and bank panel valuers were booked for cheating the bank to the tune of Rs 445.32 crores. Rama Rao has also been removed from the service.

The central agency booked the accused on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, criminal misconduct and misappropriation.

The action came after a complaint by IDBI official in Hyderabad that about 220 borrowers, consisting of 22 aggregators, conspired with IDBI bank officials at its Basheerbagh (Hyderabad) and Siripuram (Visakhapatnam) branches, along with bank panel valuers, and availed Kisan Credit Card (KCC) and pisciculture loans through 220 loan accounts from different branches of the bank aggregating Rs 198.28 crore

The loans, which were availed on the basis of fake documents and overvalued collateral property, subsequently become NPA. The outstanding amount as on September 2017 stood at Rs 445.32.

It was found that pisciculture or no other fish farming activity was ever taken up in the said lands in East and West Godavari and Krishna districts of Andhra Pradesh and Adilabad district in Telangana and that sanctioned loans were misappropriated.

Bank panel valuers Lt. Col. B.K. Sahoo, Aakar Consulting Engineers, R.A. Sharma, M.V. Srinivasulu, Subha Syndicate, Srinivasa Rau and Somasekhara Rao were among those booked.

In the second case, the CBI booked a IDBI official and nine others for defrauding the bank to the tune of Rs 93.73 crore.

Chandrasekhar Harish Chennapagari, who was working as Assistant General Manager at Guntur branch of IDBI, allegedly abused his official position to process and sanction 142 pisciculture loans from 2010 to 2012. He has been removed from service by the IDBI.

Investigations revealed that the loans were sanctioned on the basis of fake documents. The accused include a bank panel valuer, a bank panel advocate, aggregators and individual borrowers.

--IANS

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