ED grapples with severe manpower crunch

ED grapples with severe manpower crunch

Context:

• The Enforcement Directorate, which has in the past few days carried out searches at more than 100 locations in connection with the Rs. 11,500-crore fraudulent transactions case involving the Punjab National Bank (PNB), is grappling with a severe manpower crunch.

Introduction:

• It is functioning with less than 50% of approved strength
• In the PNB case, the ED has conducted searches across 13 States and seized assets worth Rs. 5,726 crore.
• The agency seized properties valued at Rs. 10 crore.
• It is also initiating the process for attaching 39 immoveable assets belonging to the accused persons. Owing to staff shortage, it had to move several officials from one zone to another.

What has happened?

• Recently, PNB found that the SWIFT system had been misused by junior-level branch officials, who had fraudulently issued letters of undertaking (LoUs) on behalf of some companies for availing buyers credit from overseas branches of Indian banks.
• The alleged fraud was carried out through misuse of Letters of Undertaking or LoUs issued by Punjab National Bank

Lack of manpower

• The directorate is currently functioning with less than 50% of the approved strength of 2,064 posts.
• While there are 900 officials handling operations at various levels, there is a vacancy of more than 300 investigating officials, which has resulted in increased work pressure on the present set-up.

Pending cases

• The agency is empowered to conduct investigations under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)and the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
• According to a report submitted by the ED to the government, the agency has brought down the pending FEMA cases from 4,700 to 1,900 since 2014.
• All the cases registered before 2001 have been disposed of.
• Under the PMLA, which came into force in 2005, the directorate had 1,300 pending cases.
• By last year, investigations were completed in over 850.