Sonepur: The State Crime Branch has intensified its investigation into financial wrongdoing in the National Rural Health Mission in Sonepur. The CB, which is looking at multiple angles linked into the fraud, has arrested Samir Pati, a resident of Rourkela Thursday.
Notably, cyber fraudsters have allegedly managed to withdraw over Rs 5.1 crore from the bank account of NHM at the district headquarters hospital.
The cyber fraud came to the fore after district accounts manager of the NHM Saroj Kumar Panda filed a written complaint in this regard a few days ago.
The Economic Offence Wing of the Crime Branch, Bhubaneswar, is looking into the matter.
A four-members CB team led by DSP Iti Das started the investigation from Wednesday. The investigating team visited the NHM office at the district headquarters hospital and enquired about monetary transactions through NHM. The CB officials have hinted that the fraud will be exposed soon.
NHM has its account (32333146321) at the head branch of the SBI here.
The CB came to know that money has been transferred online to account number (3123355704) at Central Bank in Rourkela from the NHM account April 7. The account in the Central Bank has been opened in the name of MS Natural.
The NHM authorities came to know about the fraud after the SBI provided monthly account details to the former.
It is surprising how such huge amounts of money were transferred without the knowledge of the NHM, that too through PFMS. It is suspected that someone might have provided ID and password of the NHM account. Without ID and password, it is not possible to transfer money from the NHM account to the other.
As a rule, the signatures of the CDMO and the ADMO are mandatorily required whenever there is a need to withdraw cash up to Rs 10 lakh from the NHM account. When more than Rs 10 lakh is withdrawn, signatures of the Collector, the CDMO and the ADMO are required.
The CB officials found that there has been gross violation of this rule in Rs 5 crore money transferred from the NHM.
The CB officials are trying to ascertain the bank staff who had visited the bank on the day when the money was transferred online. The investigating team is likely to check the CCTV footages of the SBI branch.
It is suspected that some staff might have received the debit and OTP messages of the money transfer in their cell phones.
How the officials of the NHM could not get hints of such a huge fraud in the NHM. Which NHM officials are involved in the fraud and which officials are hands in glove with MS Natural. The CB is delving into all such above-said angles of the cyber fraud in the NHM.
PNN
