Patna: The government will conduct a survey on the number of bank accounts of the various departments and deposits in them across the state.

Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who also handles the finance portfolio, revealed the plan on the sidelines of the 62nd review meeting of the state level bankers' committee in Patna on Saturday. The survey aims at cutting down on the large number of government accounts, which are making financial operations unwieldy and increasing risks of wrongdoing.

"We are going to conduct a survey at our own level to find out the exact number of government bank accounts and deposits in them. We have also sought a report from the departments, corporations and public sector units on the number of accounts they have along with the money in them," Sushil said. "We will cut down the number of government's bank accounts."

He asserted that the Srijan scam and the toilet scam were the most recent examples of corruption by government officials in nexus with bank officials. "In the Rs 13 crore toilet scam, detected in the public health engineering department in Patna, we found that there was no sign of the competent authority on the cheques but the money was transferred (to non-government organisations)," Sushil said.

The government, Modi said, was receiving complaints of widespread corruption in the lower level of banks and directed the institutions to take action and remain alert.

Modi also dealt on the credit-deposit ratio of banks. He said banks have lent Rs 46,800 crore against an annual credit plan of Rs 1.10 lakh crore in the first six months of the 2017-18 fiscal, and warned that the government will stop business with banks that do not provide loans to people.

"We are going to fix a fresh standard for banks and our departments will deposit money and do transactions only with those that meet them. The new parameters will be ready by December," Sushil said.