One of the leading urban cooperative banks of Uttarakhand, Kurmanchal Nagar Sahkari Bank was in news for all the wrong reasons. The UCB’s Chairman was forced to issue statement and clarify that the scam was reported to RBI two months ago.
It bears recall that a scam had rocked the UCB in which one of its agents Harishchand Upreti, who is a resident of Sitaraganj and the bank’s Mini Deposit agent duped scores of gullible depositors of the bank. The initial investigation reveals a cheating of close to Rs 16 lakh-the amount is not less when one considers the poor financial condition of the state’s population.
Sending his reaction through whatsapp Vinay Sah Chairman of the bank said, “Investigation was carried out and the scam came to light. Basically, it was a result of certain procedures being routinely carried out by the bank. We reported the matter to RBI two months ago”, he revealed.
The incident relates to Udham Nagar district. The latest report is the session court has sentenced the accused to jail.
Giving details of the cheating, Sitaraganj Branch Manager of the UCB Pracheev Rana said, “The accused was appointed in the year 2010 for collecting door to door deposits in 2010. For the past six months, he would collect money from depositors but show less amount in the machine issued by the bank to the agent to update the balance.”
Upreti would update passbooks manually mentioning the full amount against depositors’ names so that the poor depositor had no clue to his dubious game”, he narrated the modus operandi of the accused.
“Several days back one of the depositors contacted me and informed about the whole matter. With the help of our team when we investigated the matter we found Harichand Upreti guilty. Immediately thereafter, we lodged an FIR against him”, he said.
Meanwhile, the accused Harishchand Upreti has returned Rs 3.46 lakh to the bank and the rest of amount is being recovered by attaching his property.
Kurmanchal Nagar Sahkari Bank was established in 1983 and is the leading Urban Cooperative Bank of Uttarakhand having a network of over 41 branches. More than 25,000 members are associated with it.
The bank has 24 on site ATMs and earned a profit of about Rs 14 crore in the 2016-17 financial year, said the bank Chairman Vinay Sah. His father late Madan Lal Sah was the founder of the bank.