Bhubaneswar, Dec 8 (IANS): The Economic Offences Wing of Odisha Police has arrested two senior officers of Central Bank of India on the charges of fraudulently sanctioning loans in the name of ineligible persons thereby misappropriating the loan amount and government subsidy worth crores of rupees.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) SP, Dilip Kumar Tripathy said here on Friday that the two were arrested on Thursday.

The accused persons identified as Dambarudhar Nayak and Devidutta Panigrahy were nabbed by the sleuths from Keonjhar and Bhubaneswar respectively.

The EOW arrested the duo on the basis of a complaint lodged by Anadi Biswas, the regional head, Central Bank of India, Regional Office, Bhubaneswar here.

Biswas alleged in his complaint that the accused Nayak and Panigrahy during their tenure as the Branch Manager and Agricultural Finance Officer at the Bhadreswar Branch of the bank in Cuttack had fraudulently sanctioned 68 Central Kisan Credit Cards (CKCC) loans, 24 term loans and the misappropriation of government subsidy.

The accused allegedly caused a loss to the tune of Rs 3,33,52,602.03 to the public sector bank during their incumbency from September 18, 2015 to November 11, 2018.

“The accused bankers have illegally sanctioned and misappropriated around Rs 85.50 lakh in 68 CKCC accounts, Rs1.49 crore in 24 Term Loan accounts, Rs15.60 lakh of subsidy amount of eight borrowers of Prime Minister Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) scheme and Rs 83.24 lakh towards 114 irregular transactions in bank’s profit and loss accounts,” said Tripathy added.

Tripathy further added that the accused duo had sanctioned loans using forged documents without the knowledge of most of the borrowers. Besides, they raised the limit of the term loans without taking the consent of the borrowers. Subsequently, they have misappropriated almost the whole loan and subsidy amount.