Vadodara: A major loan scam has come to light in Dahod, where salary slips and related documents of 29 people—mostly government employees—were allegedly forged and inflated to obtain loans worth Rs 5.5 crore from two branches of the State Bank of India (SBI).The loan amounts were disbursed to depositors against their actual eligibility and to some who were not eligible at all. The fraudulent scheme was allegedly orchestrated by two former managers of separate branches and some middlemen who earned hefty commission for facilitating the forgery. Both managers have been arrested.The scam unfolded across SBI’s Yadgar Chowk main branch and the Station Road branch in Dahod town, where loans were reportedly disbursed without proper verification, almost like “freebies.” The irregularities were exposed during internal audits, which revealed the use of forged documents and gross lapses in due diligence.Two separate FIRs have been registered—one at A Division police station and the other at B Division police station in Dahod. One FIR names 20 persons including 19 loanees and a bank manager, while other names 10 loanees and one manager.Out of the 29 loans, 17 were sanctioned on the basis of inflated salary slips of genuine government employees. In the remaining 10 cases, individuals who were not employed by the government submitted forged salary documents, falsely claiming to be teachers or state transport (ST) bus drivers. One borrower, who took a loan of Rs 19 lakh claiming it was for procuring centering material, was found to have no such business. Even the vendor whose invoice was submitted turned out to be fictitious. In another case, a man secured a Rs 2 crore home loan for constructing a four-storey house but built only two floors. The rest of the money was allegedly siphoned off.At SBI’s Yadgar Chowk branch, 19 such fraudulent loans were granted between June 20, 2022, and Feb 13, 2024. The present Chief Manager, Deepak Pawar, has filed a complaint naming former branch manager Gurmeet Singh Bedi and 19 borrowers as accused. The audit report had flagged several of these borrowers as defaulters with prior non-performing assets (NPAs) or settled loans—making them ineligible for fresh loans.At SBI’s Station Road branch, 10 fraudulent loans were sanctioned between Sept1, 2021, and June 20, 2024, during the tenure of then-manager Manish Gavli. The present branch manager, Nitin Pundir, has lodged a complaint stating that seven borrowers had submitted salary slips of schoolteachers and three of ST drivers. Verification later revealed that none of them were ever employed at the institutions mentioned.Dahod sub-divisional police officer Jagdishsinh Bhandari confirmed that the two branch managers under whose tenure the fraudulent loans were sanctioned, along with three borrowers, have been arrested. Two middlemen, who allegedly facilitated the loans in exchange for commissions, have also been detained for questioning.“These middlemen charged applicants to secure loans and passed a portion of the bribe to bank officials,” Bhandari added.
