New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released its Annual Report for the year 2020-21. While it lays out the state of the economy currently, it points out certain alarming statistics, Congress alleged. According to the opposition party “the failure of the Modi government in controlling infections due to the second wave of COVID-19 is denting a heavy blow again to the economy”. According to RBI, congress in its press release said “the March2021 round of the Reserve Bank’s consumer confidence survey (CCS) showed a worsening consumer sentiment on the back of deteriorating sentiments on general economic situation, income and prices.”
Details of the Press note is given below:
One of the important parts of the Annual Report was the data around cases of Bank Frauds.The cases and amount of bank fraud has been on a rapid rise since 2014-15. In the year 2020-21 alone, the total amount of fraud was Rs 1.38 Lakh Crore (Refer to Annexure A). Although RBI and other agencies have tried to portray the fraud numbers for 2020-21 as declining from 2019-20, there is another side to the story. Here are the key takeaways that everyone needs to understand:
1. The total fraud amount has been increasing since 2014-15 and increased at a CAGR of 57% between 2014-15 and 2019-20
2. For the year 2020-21, when loan moratorium was in effect till August 31, 2020and restructuring initiatives were in effect for until December 31, 2020, the fraud amount for the entire year was still Rs 1,38,422Crore.
3. Even if we focus on the last 3 years, the average fraud amount increased from Rs 10.5 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 21.3 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 18.8 crore in 2020-21. The average fraud amount was Rs 4.2 crore in 2014-15. Hence, the average fraud amount has become 4x to 5x under Modi 1.0 and Modi 2.0
4. As per RBI, the average time lag between the date of occurrence of frauds and the date of detection was 23 months for the frauds reported in 2020-21 and 24 months for the frauds reported in 2019-20. For large frauds greater than Rs 100 crore,the average lag was 57 months for 2020-21 and 63 months for 2019-20. Hence, the frauds identified in the fiscal year 2020-21 was committed sometime in the fiscal year 2018-19 and large frauds were committed sometime in the fiscal year 2015-16.
The details provided by RBI highlight a glaring reality on both the fraud and the state of the economy. It clearly vindicates the fact that the Modi government is all talk and no action, similar to all its poll promises.
We have three questions for the Modi government:
1. Why has the government failed to curb the bank frauds in the last 7 years?
2. What is the government doing to recover the amount involved in these bank frauds?
3. How much amount has been collected from these fraudsters who are weakening our banking system?
The Modi government has weakened the banking system by allowing the fraudsters to either continue functioning in the country or leave the country without making any efforts to recover the fraud amounts. It has also not provided enough capital support to the banks. The Congress party urges that the Modi government handles these fraudsters with an iron fist and make sure that the entire amount, that belongs to our nation, be recovered as soon as possible
Annexure A
| Year | No. of Frauds | Amount Involved (Rs Crores) |
| 2014-15 | 4,639 | 19,455 |
| 2015-16 | 4,693 | 18,698 |
| 2016-17 | 5,076 | 23,933 |
| 2017-18 | 5,916 | 41,167 |
| 2018-19 | 6,798 | 71,534 |
| 2019-20 | 8,703 | 1,85,468 |
| 2020-21 | 7,363 | 1,38,422 |
| TOTAL | Rs 4,98,677 Crore (~Rs 5 Trillion) |
