Crime

Crime

Huge loan default, chairman resigns! Guardianless 'Durgapur Steel People's Co-operative Bank', mystery deepens

• By MONAJ SINGHA, DURGAPUR
• July 30, 2026
• 264

Durgapur:- Durgapur Steel People's Cooperative Bank, one of the cooperative banks in Durgapur, has become almost without a guardian due to the huge amount of unpaid loans. Bank Chairman Lalit Das and several directors of the board of directors suddenly went to the ARCS office in Asansol on Tuesday and submitted their resignations. This resignation is said to have come in the wake of the BJP and BMS putting heavy pressure on the current management committee of the bank, alleging that there have been huge irregularities in this bank. Since the resignation of the chairman of the management committee and other office bearers, questions have started arising, so what is the future of this cooperative bank now? At present, the amount of unpaid loans of this cooperative bank is around 30 to 35 crore rupees, according to a preliminary survey. Apart from the permanent and contract workers of Durgapur Steel, a total of 6,672 individuals and institutions in Durgapur city and its surrounding areas have taken huge amounts of loans from this bank.

It is worth noting that since no elections were held in this bank for about seven or eight years, there was no elected board of directors for a long time. As a result, a kind of deadlock was created. In 2025, the then Trinamool leadership suddenly created a farce one day in the name of elections and gave birth to a sham management committee among themselves. In addition to Trinamool, three representatives from INTUC and another labor organization HMS were placed in that management committee. It has been alleged that a section of Trinamool looted the deposits of the depositors of this city by placing this bank almost on the road. In this regard, INTUC leader and one of the directors of this management committee, Rajat Dixit, said, "After the last 4th May political  change in the state, INTUC leaders Manas Adhikari and Bappa Chattaraj suddenly resigned from the management committee of this bank. Even though these two people resigned, the chairman of the management committee, Lalit Das, and vice-chairperson Srabani Sarkar, remained in their positions until now. With the sudden resignation of chairman Lalit Das, the question arises, who will take responsibility for this unpaid loan now?" Not only are huge loans unpaid, there are many borrowers who have taken loans at the address where they showed their business, but there are complaints from various sources that they cannot be found at all.  

It may be recalled that during the Left era, with the direct support of a top leader of the CPIM, a hotelier from Durgapur took a loan of about five crore rupees from this cooperative bank and did not repay it. At that time, there was a lot of confusion about the matter, but for some unknown reason, the whole matter was covered up. Later, the hotelier expanded his business into various other areas. But he did not repay the loan from Durgapur Steel People's Cooperative Bank. After that, there was a political change in the state in 2011. Trinamool came to power. And the hotelier also changed camps and became close to the ruling party. Over time, the hotelier even became a close circle of former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. In addition, several influential businessmen in the close circle of Trinamool took loans of crores of rupees from this cooperative bank and did not repay it. Even though they got loans of huge amounts of money from this bank by using political influence, none of them felt the need to repay the loan. Complaints have started coming from within the bank itself that a huge amount of cut money has been played in the disbursement of this loan. And while several complaints regarding this cut money were going around the city, the former chairman of this bank, a prominent Trinamool leader Nikhil Naik, died mysteriously and unnaturally!

After the mysterious death of Nikhil Naik, the then Trinamool district president and Pandaveshwar MLA Narendranath Chakraborty directly claimed that Nikhil Babu had been brutally murdered. Even Durgapur East MLA and state minister Pradeep Majumdar was seen making the same claim. But surprisingly, the police watered down the entire investigation process by calling the mysterious death of Nikhil Naik a simple 'suicide' incident. After the mysterious death of Nikhil Naik went into cold storage, new questions started to arise, including about the role of the current management committee members of this cooperative bank. 

Currently, the number of customers of this bank is about 51,000. Crores of rupees were given to the borrowers from the deposits of all of them. As a rough estimate, it is seen that at the moment, 6672 loan accounts have been given loans worth about 70 to 80 crore rupees to the borrowers. In this context, INTUC leader Rajat Dixit clearly demanded, "Until the bank's audit process is complete, he and another INTUC leader Paresh Karmakar will not resign from the post of director of the management committee. Because in this case, resigning means running away from responsibility. In addition to recovering the money from those who have given crores of rupees in loans to various institutions in exchange for cut money. Rajat Babu demanded that the entire list of this public money should be brought to the public through a transparent and accurate audit. The names of all the powerful businessmen in the Trinamool's close circle who have taken crores of rupees in loans from this bank should also be published in the media."

Many citizens of durgapur have claimed that this fraud of Durgapur Steel People's Cooperative Bank is a small version of the mega fraud of Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, Lalit Modi, Vijay Mallya and other businessmen in India previously . Along with an immediate investigation against everyone in charge of this bank, there has been a demand to return the loan money that has almost become unpaid to the bank. At the same time, demands have been raised from various quarters to reopen the file of Nikhil Naik's mysterious death. Trinamool West Burdwan district president Narendranath Chakraborty, after seeing Nikhil Babu's dead body, claimed that Nikhil Babu was murdered, not a suicide at that point of time of incident. In that case, the question of why the mystery of the death was covered up in a hurry has also arisen. Who did the police wash their hands of that mysterious death that day by labeling it a suicide to save? The residents of the industrial area have demanded that the incident of that mysterious death be brought under the microscope again. The question arises, will the BJP really take any steps to unravel the mystery? People in the industrial area are looking for answers to all these questions.