The Blue Grid Files
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The number that would not sit still

Published 3 October 2026

Anyone who followed this case in the press came away with a different headline number. They are not eight estimates of the same thing. They are, mostly, different things.

The bank's number: 490, then 590

On 22 February the bank said the aggregate amount under reconciliation was approximately Rs 590 crore. It explained on the 23rd that Rs 490 crore was the discrepancy found by reconciliation and that Rs 100 crore more was found by the bank's own checks, totalling Rs 590 crore. That is the first figure, and it was a bank's estimate of what was missing from the Haryana government's accounts at the Chandigarh branch on the day of the filing. HT's March tally used Rs 597 crore, and the same article's headline still said Rs 590 crore elsewhere. The sources reviewed do not explain the Rs 7 crore difference. It is a small gap, on a different date, and this file does not interpret it.

The CBI's two numbers: 550 and 504, then 657

When the CBI took the case in April it estimated the public loss as "estimated to exceed Rs 550 crores". By the first chargesheet on 21 May, the agency's press release spoke of "misappropriation of Government funds to the tune of Rs. 504 Crores, siphoned off from bank accounts of various Government Departments of Haryana". And in the third chargesheet, on 2 September, the CBI's statement said the total quantum of the fraud in the Haryana case was Rs 504 crore, and added that "with the Chandigarh Administration accounts included, the quantum of fraud reaches Rs 657 crore".

That last sentence is the key to the whole puzzle. Rs 504 crore is the Haryana government's money, counted by the CBI across 12 accounts in eight departments: 236 fraudulent debits worth Rs 818 crore against 84 fraudulent credits worth Rs 214 crore, a net loss of Rs 504.36 crore. Rs 657 crore is that figure plus the two Chandigarh cases, CSCL with the Municipal Corporation and CREST, which the CBI took over and chargesheeted separately. Both numbers are the CBI's. They differ by the scope.

The ED's number: 645.59

The ED told the Panchkula court on 11 May that eleven government departments in Haryana and Chandigarh, and two schools, suffered a loss of Rs 645.59 crore. Its department-by-department list is the most granular available: Rs 169.27 crore from the Pollution Control Board, Rs 50 crore from HPGCL, Rs 10 crore from the Agricultural Marketing Board, Rs 80 crore from Panchkula's Municipal Corporation, Rs 48.72 crore from the Rural Development Fund Administration Board, Rs 53.86 crore from HSSPP, Rs 18.10 crore from Kalka's Municipal Council, Rs 50 crore from the Labour Welfare Board, Rs 82.02 crore from CREST, Rs 73.50 crore from Chandigarh's Municipal Corporation, Rs 7.80 crore and Rs 1.99 crore from the two schools, and Rs 32.80 lakh from another Pollution Control Board account.

Add those figures and you get the ED's total. Add only the Haryana departments and the CBI's Rs 504 crore is in the neighbourhood, though the two agencies count transactions differently, and the sources reviewed do not give a line-by-line match. ThePrint's September explainer put the position this way: the CBI pegs the total fraud in the Haryana case at Rs 504 crore, and the ED, running a parallel probe, has previously put the combined figure for Haryana and Chandigarh at Rs 645 crore. The Tribune's later reports used Rs 657 crore, the CBI's combined figure, in headlines.

The bank's number again: 646

The bank's own forensic review gave a third basis. In June, IDFC First said KPMG's review had quantified the net principal amount at around Rs 646 crore, in line with the bank's previous disclosures. It said it had paid that amount and applicable interest to the departments. In September, per The Statesman, a prosecution-sanction order recorded the bank's loss as Rs 646 crore in principal, besides interest, and noted that the bank's financial disclosures put the amount paid to affected entities at Rs 645.59 crore plus applicable interest. The ED's Rs 645.59 crore and the bank's payout figure are the same number to the paisa. The sources do not say why.

What was returned

A different question is how much was paid back, and here again the sources count different things. The Haryana chief minister's 24 February figure was Rs 556 crore plus about Rs 22 crore interest, Rs 578 crore in all. ThePrint, in May, wrote that the bank had returned Rs 578 crore, principal and interest, to the Haryana government. The bank said in April it had paid 100 per cent of principal and interest to the relevant departments. Those statements are consistent if the Rs 578 crore was the first payment to Haryana's departments and the later payments covered the Chandigarh bodies, CREST and the schools. The sources do not lay that out explicitly.

A table

For the reader who wants it in one place:

Five different organisations produced these numbers on different dates for different scopes. The resolution this file offers is the one the sources support: the figures describe at least three different perimeters, the Haryana departments, the Haryana departments plus Chandigarh bodies and schools, and the bank's reconciled payout, and none of them has been adjudicated by a court. They will not all collapse into one, and a reader should be suspicious of any article that presents a single one of them as the amount of "the fraud".

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