Two held in Odisha's Sonepur for siphoning off Rs 5 crore

BHUBANESWAR:  The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch arrested two persons for allegedly siphoning off Rs 5 crore from the account of Zilla Swasthya Samiti in Sonepur on April 7 by hacking the public financial management system (PFMS) of National Health Mission (NHM).

Basing on a report of Sonepur CDMO, the EOW had registered a case in this connection on May 1 and launched investigation into the matter. 

In the complaint, the CDMO had mentioned that Rs 5.01 crore was unauthorisedly diverted from the account of Zilla Swasthya Samiti.

During EOW’s investigation, it came to fore that one Rajkishore Nayak of Bhawanipatna, who was engaged as an accountant at Sonepur NHM on temporary basis from April, 2016 to December last year had hatched a conspiracy with Ananta Charan Pradhan of Pipili and others and generated an e-cheque of Rs 5 crore by hacking the NHM portal. 

Nayak, who had also worked as an accountant at SVNIRTAR in Olatpur on temporary basis, fabricated the seal of Sonepur CDMO and ADMO and stamped it on the e-cheque.

He then placed it before a SBI branch in Sonepur for clearance following which the amount was transferred to the account of M/S Naturals on April 7 this year.