Fishy loans: CBI registers 3 FIRs in Rs 743 crore bad loans in IDBI bank

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered three fresh cases to look into Rs 743 crore of fishy loans issued by an IDBI bank branch in West Godavari district for pisciculture and Kisan Credit Cards which have became non-performing assets, the officials said on Thursday, reported Press Trust of India.

The central agency has named three accused persons — B K Sahoo, retired DGM of the bank R Damodaran and the then DGM Battu Rama Rao — who are common in all the three FIRs.There are a total of 41 others accused in these three separate FIRs, they said.

The agency has said the cases pertaining to the loans of Rs 394 crore, Rs 160 crore, and Rs 189 crore — issued between 2009 and 2012 from IDBI's Palangi branch in West Godavari district on the pretext of availing Kisan Credit Cards (KCC) and pisciculture — fish farming — loans.

It is alleged that the loans were issued without proper loan documents, without conducting pre-sanction and post sanction inspections and without ascertaining the end use of the loan.

It is alleged that as per procedure laid down for sanctioning KCC loans, the maximum limit with regard to the operation of primary activity or fish tank activity is 50 km from the branch location, however, Damodaran and Rao instructed the branch officials to ignore the condition, they said.

Damodaran and Rao allegedly abused their official position breached the sanctioned limit of Rs 25 lakh for KCC loan and bypassed agri-processing centre and directed for the issuance of loans on the basis of intentionally overvalued collateral properties and furnished inflated net worth certificates in respect of borrowers, the FIR alleged. 

(With PTI inputs)