India's bank frauds under Modi rose by 90%; in Gujarat 177%; in Tamil Nadu 229%, in West Bengal 667%: RBI

By A Representative
A Bangalore-based startup, which helps citizens file queries under the Right-to-Information (RTI) Act, OnlineRTI.com, has revealed in the year since Narendra Modi’s government took charge, there has been a whopping 90 per cent increase in bank frauds, as per Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data obtained through RTI.
“Over the year since Modi’s government took office, the amount involved in bank fraud rose from Rs 10,170 crore in the fiscal year 2013-14 to Rs 19,361 crore in 2014-15”, says a report based on the data, adding, “The fraud ranged from cheque alteration to fake loans, debit/credit card fraud to cyber fraud.”
The data further show that the banks in Maharashtra saw a 150 per cent increase in fraud, from Rs 2,445 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 6,115 crore in 2014-15, and banks in West Bengal notched a 667 per cent increase in fraud, from Rs 773 crore to Rs 5,930 crore. The two states together accounted for more than 50 per cent of the total loss through fraud.
Gujarat, which for long has been touted as India’s “model” state, witnessed a 177 per cent rise in bank fraud – from Rs 453 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 1,256 crore in 2014-15. Significantly, in the year 2012-13, Gujarat reported just about Rs 51 crore worth of bank fraud. In Tamil Nadu, it rose by 279 per cent -- from Rs 483 crore to Rs 1,831 crore. During the same period, Delhi saw a fall in bank fraud by 33 per cent and Andhra Pradesh by 26 per cent.

Bringing these and other facts to light, an online data analysis website, www.indiaspend.com, said that the rise in bank fraud is a major reason why Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was forced to set up “the fraud registry and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) reviewed the fraud-detection system”, says the report.
An RBI circular issued in July 2015, taking a serious view of the rise in bank fraud cases, said that when banks discover fraud, they should to report cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the police or to the Serious Fraud Investigation Office.
“Public-sector banks appear to have borne the brunt of the fraud-spike, with the Punjab National Bank, which lost a sum of Rs 2,310 crore, topping the list for 2014-15, followed by the Central Bank of India, where the lost amount stands at Rs 2,150 crore, the data further reveal. Both banks recorded a fraud increase of more than 200% since 2012-13”, the report, authored by analyst Gangadhar S Patil, said.
It added, “Despite a market share of 30 per cent, private banks collectively account for around 40 per cent of losses from bank fraud.” India has 20 private banks, 26 public-sector banks and 30 foreign banks.

Patil said, “In some cases, bank staff were involved: 47 such cases of fraud, valued at Rs 177 crore, were detected during 2014-15, according to data submitted to Parliament”, adding, “When staff are involved, banks have always tried to suppress fraud and categorise them as non-performing assets or NPAs (to show they were business loses).”
The report pointed out, NPAs, in fact, are a “fig leaf behind which fraud hides, soared 23% from Rs 2,51,060 crore in March 2014 to Rs 3,09,409 crore in March 2015, according to a statement in Parliament this July by Minister Of State (Finance) Jayant Sinha.”

Comments

Kumari Puja said…

Great Information.
Thank You

April 10, 2017

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

By Ram Puniyani The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue.

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Search This Blog