TIME TO AUDIT SBI BRANCHES
As the peculiar case of coins worth Rs 11 crore gone missing from the vaults of the Karauli Branch of State Bank of India (SBI) in Rajasthan has come to fore and the CBI is probing the matter, it is right time to hold audits of all the branches of the nationalized bank as this might be the tip of an iceberg. In this context, the CBI has conducted searches at 25 locations after registering the case on April 13 following an order of the Rajasthan High Court. Reportedly, the places where searches were carried out include Delhi, Jaipur, Dausa, Karauli, Sawai Madhopur, Alwar, Udaipur and Bhilwara at the premises of around 15 former bank officials and others. It is pertinent to mention that this strange case came to fore when the aforesaid branch of State Bank of India (SBI) branch decided to carry out counting of money after a preliminary enquiry indicated discrepancy in its cash reserve in August, 2021.
The counting was outsourced to a private vendor which revealed that over Rs 11 crore worth of coins were missing from the branch.
Only 3,000 coin bags carrying about Rs 2 crore could be accounted for and were transferred to the RBI’s coin holding branch. This case is an eye opener for the SBI and all other banks also because coins worth Rs 11 crore is a gigantic amount and if the same can be siphoned off stealthily then anything is possible in the banks. It is likely that the central investigating agency will unearth things layer by layer and the whole gamut will come clear but till then all the branches of SBI and even other banks should order the counting of cash and coins to ensure that everything is alright in their chests and there is nothing to worry. Being a very serious matter, the concerned quarters in the government or the RBI could also intervene to ask banks to make things transparent by holding internal audits in the matter as things seem to be fishy and a big scam is likely to come out. The whistle blower employees of the SBI who initially raised the issue by smelling foul play should be rewarded because by cracking this case a new kind of modus operandi is likely to be surfaced, which can help the concerned agencies to keep an eagle eye view on such matters in the future.