The State Bank of India authorities in Malda, West Bengal  have lodged an FIR with the English Bazaar police station after they detected dicrepancies in the physical cash balance in the reserve bin at two ATMs in Malda town.

A sum of Rs1,425,700 has reportedly gone missing since 28 January with about Rs11.12 lakh missing from the reserve bin of ATM-II located at the Malda Tourist Lodge.

The two ATMs have been shut down with SBI authorities initiating deparmental investigations into the matter.

The cash shortage was detected by an ATM officer, who reported the discrepancies to the management on 28 January. He said that he had failed to match the cash balance sheet with the statement of transactions recorded in the ATMs due to shortage of cash in the bins.

Meanwhile, senior ATM officer P Dutta rushed from Siliguri on being alerted by higher authorities on receiving the reports from SBI Malda officials.

The chief manager of  SBI's Malda main branch, S K Chakrabarty, said that Dutta had examined the accounts of the two ATMs but had failed to identify the immediate cause for the cash shortage. He added that Dutta had called for seeking expert opinion to further investigate the matter.

CCTV footage from the ATMs has been collected for purposes for identification and further investigation.

Questions regarding the efficacy of the security system at the ATMs are also being raised.

Himangshu Banerjee, central committee member of the SBI Officers' Federation (Bengal circle) said a resolution has been adopted on 1 February to the effect that any SBI official found guilty should be punished.

Superintendent of police Satyajit Banerjee said police has started a probe into the matter and the bank has closed down the two ATMs.