Officials of State Bank of India (SBI) in the city have lodged a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) the managements of four private firms for cheating the bank with fake documents to get loans.

The firms took loans of around Rs.24 crore from the SBI in 2012 with the promise of setting up IT companies at Madhurawada and city suburbs.

Confirming this to TOI, a senior SBI official on condition of anonymity said, "We have registered a case a few days ago with the CBIs Chennai branch against four firms for cheating our bank . The firms had taken around Rs.24 crore loan from the SBI in 2012. The Chennai branch might have forwarded the case to the Vizag CBI unit two days back. The case is under investigation by the CBI."

According to reliable sources, the four firms applied for loans from SBI by producing documents including the title deeds of some government lands at Madhurawada IT SEZ. Based on the documents, SBI is believed to have sanctioned loans to four firms to the tune of Rs.24 crore. Each firm got a loan of around Rs.5 crore to Rs.7 crore. The firms have also done business with money , sources added.

As the firms have not shown any interest in repaying the loans, the SBI officials crosschecked the documents and suspected that they might have cheated the bank by producing fake documents.

O Naresh Kumar, executive director of IT Association of Andhra Pradesh, said everybody including bankers and revenue officials should be blamed in such cases. He added that the bankers should examine documents before sanctioning loans.