New Delhi, Jan 1 : Despite the Covid-19 pandemic hitting the country and imposition of the nationwide lockdown for several months, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) managed to solve 800 cases. Addressing the CBI officers through video conference, agency Director Rishi Kumar Shukla said, "Covid-19 related lockdown came as a challenge. In spite of the best efforts taken, the CBI family lost a few officers and men." "A large number of cases numbering around 800 were disposed off during the year gone by (2020) despite the huge challenges of Covid-19 pandemic, which caused tremendous hurdles in the operations in various walks of life," he said. "With your cooperation and efforts, we have been able to finalise the investigation of a substantial number of cases to achieve our targets. We need to work hard in the coming days," the CBI Director said. He also complimented the investigating officers and the supervisory officers in exhibiting the true nature of team CBI towards relentlessly pursuing cases. He cited the example of a recently adjudicated case in Kerala in which conviction was pronounced despite the severely hampered and complicated case handed over to the CBI. Shukla also emphasised the need for officers and others at various levels to keep themselves updated with the latest tools of investigation through sustained training. He pointed out that new and well innovated online or virtual training modules are now available or developed as a fallout of restrictions due to the Covid pandemic. Shukla underscored the need for "supervisory officers to involve themselves in live investigation cases" more frequently as a New Year resolution. "This will help them to have first-hand experience of some of the present investigation methods and can further guide their teams to strengthen or further improve investigation with an objective of accelerating the process," the Director said. Shukla conveyed his condolences to the family members of those officers who died due to Covid and assured them of all possible assistance. He stressed the need to continuously adhere to the Covid protocols as the pandemic is still raging. "We should continue with periodic sanitization of our workplace and frequent testing," he said. The Director also highlighted the welfare activities and said efforts were made to fill up the existing vacancies, hold maximum DPCs whereby a number of officials were promoted. He recognised the services rendered by the officers while getting various prestigious awards, including IPM/PPM/USM/AUSM/Home Minister's Medal and Asuchana Padak, etc. The Director complimented the officers of the agency for professional work and for progressively achieving better results, especially during the last two years. Recently, a large number of high value bank fraud cases have been taken up which marks an emerging challenge to the CBI, he added. /IANS