Haryana: SBI Starts Process To Recover Rs 32 Crore From Student Accounts

State Bank of India’s management in Haryana has started the process of recovering Rs 31.95 crore of amount which was credited into the bank accounts of lakhs of students who were eligible for various scholarships under various schemes of the Haryana Secondary Education Department (HSED) in 2016-17 financial year, Indian Express has reported.

HSED releases scholarships to eligible students in class VIII and class XII quarterly and annually.

However, SBI credited the amount in the accounts of the students without HSED clearing them. HSED then filed an FIR at the sector 5 police station on 25 September against the management of the SBI alleging an embezzlement of Rs 154.27 crore.

HSED filed FIR against SBI management only when they did not respond to half-a-dozen requests of HSED to provide files related to the amount credited.

Sources said, “After the registration of FIR, SBI officers started reviewing all the credited amounts in different phases and they are ready to provide all the details to the state education department. They have now sought assistance from the education department to initiate a process to recover the mistakenly credited amount from several accounts opened in the names of students.”

After the FIR was filed, SBI officers started reviewing all the credited accounts and are ready to provide all the details to the HSED.

“First of all, there is no embezzlement and we cleared this point with senior education department officers. It is a matter of reconciliation. We have all the records of credited amounts in the accounts and making effort to get back the credited scholarships in lakhs of accounts despite the fact that the credited amount was not cleared by the state education department. We are cooperating with the education department officers and chalking out a plan with them to recover the credited amount,” said SBI Regional Manager R K Chokkar.

Rajeev Rattan, Director of the HSED said, “Initially, SBI was reluctant to reply to our queries. Now, they are in our contact. We are jointly reviewing all the accounts in which scholarships were credited but not cleared by our department.”