Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of state police has started investigation into the illegal transfer of over Rs 5 crore from the account of National Health Mission of Subarnapur district. A case has been registered in this regard on the basis of a complaint lodged by the District Accounts Manager of NHM Subarnapur, Saroj Kumar Panda.
According to sources, The Chief District Medical Officer of Subarnapur, while going through the monthly bank statement of the account of NHM held at the State Bank of India’s Sonepur branch, came across the unauthorized withdrawal of Rs 5,01,50,000 from the account April 7.
Subsequently, Panda met the officials of the concerned SBI branch. They urged the bank manager to supply the transaction details along with the copy of Public Finance Monitoring System. Later, it came to fore that the money was transferred to the account of one agency, M/s Naturals with account number 3123355704. The authorities suspect that some unknown fraudsters hacked the account and took away the money.
The transaction details revealed that the miscreants forged the signature of CDMO to withdraw the amount. Meanwhile, the complainant also raised suspicion over the role of bank officials who approved the transaction in contravention to the guidelines issued regarding the withdrawal of money from the official account. As per instructions issued to the bank in 2013, signatures of Collector and CDMO are mandatory before withdrawal of amount beyond Rs 10 lakh from the account. In this case, the transfer was approved considering the forged signature of CDMO. The miscreants also tried to transfer another Rs 4.98 crore to an account registered in the name of Goel Steel but failed due to the lack of adequate funds in the account of NHM, Subnarnapur.
Another such case was observed when Rs 3 crore was withdrawn from the official account of Panchayat Office at Balikuda in Jagatsinghpur in January. EOW sleuths have been investigating the matter after registering a case with the compliant registered by the Block Development Officer (BDO) of Balikuda. The local authorities had earlier lodged a complaint in this regard with the Balikuda police January 9. It was alleged that the fraudsters withdrew Rs 3 crore from the official account held at Arilo branch of Union Bank of India without the knowledge of the BDO.
PNN