Economic offences grown 2-fold along with India's fiscal boom

MUMBAI: While India has witnessed unprecedented levels of economic expansions in the past decade, economic offences have also grown two-folds since 2004.

According to data released by CBI, in 2008-09, 23,917 bank fraud cases were registered as against 10,450 cases registered in 2004-05, a 128 per cent rise from the latter.

"In 2004-05, the cases registered amounted to Rs 779 crore loss to the banking sector and in 2009, the amount has increased to Rs 1,883 crore," Superintendent of Police (SP) of CBI's Bank Security and Fraud Cell, Mahipal Yadav told reporters today at a three-day CBI workshop here.

Out of the 23,917 cases, 3,425 cases have been registered against public sector banks.

From January 2009 till date, 61 bank fraud cases have been registered against 271 private persons and 73 public servants, which has incurred a loss of Rs 911 crore to the banking sector, Yadav said.

In order to tackle such fraud cases, CBI investigating officers undergo specialised courses in the training centres of public sector banks in order to update their knowledge of banking norms, rules, procedures, analysis of financial statements and so on.

"Even bank officials are made to undergo training. The CBI academy in Ghaziabad organises training for these officials particularly on the role of presenting officer in Regular Departmental Action and role of prosecution sanctioning authority," Yadav said.