The Crime Branch (CB), will probe into the financial irregularities in Bhubaneswar Urban Cooperative Bank (B-UCB), and examine the role of top management from 1988, when the bank was established, till it was shut down, reports New Indian Express.
The CB has not yet registered a case and begun assessing the documents provided by the Cooperative Department in this regard.
The CB’s initial analysis of the Vigilance investigation into the financial transactions revealed that 19 cases registered by the latter pertained to individual loans which had turned bad.
The State Government had asked the CB to probe the reasons which had led to the liquidation of the bank which was initially reporting profit before its financial health deteriorated. From 2001 onwards, the bank started to sustain losses and even equity infusion by the Government did not work. Later, the merger plans also failed.
The UCB owes about Rs 28 crore to its depositors while it has failed to recover Rs 35 crore, including Rs 19 crore as principal, from loanees. The bank’s customer base was about 14,000.
The Reserve Bank of India, in 2004, imposed strictures on the operations and directed its liquidation. In 2007, the Government tried a merger deal with a Pune-based firm but it fell through. Another attempt in 2013 also failed.
Official sources said a case will be registered once it has prepared the list of people responsible for the mismanagement.