The Ministry of Railways has detected a fraud in Northern Railway where “ghost employees” were created to claim Travelling Allowance, Over Time Allowance and Night Duty Allowance by manipulating the Pay Roll Computerised System.
After uncovering the fraud, which resulted in the misappropriation of funds to the tune of ₹1.5 crore, the Railway Board has written to all zonal general managers to conduct a scrutiny of pay roll records from 2016 onwards to check the possibility of similar irregularities having been committed.
The emphasis of the scrutiny should specifically be on TA, OTA and NDA and arrears, railway sources said here on Friday.
Preliminary investigation into the fraud detected in the Northern Railway revealed a nexus between the bill clerk of the personnel department and the beneficiaries, all working as pointsman in the Railways.
Prescribed codes in the provisions for passing the bills were also not followed by the authorities concerned in the case, sources said. Asking the General Managers to ensure that all the provisions for passing the bills were strictly followed for strengthening the bill checking system, the board said the modus operandi of the suspects in the fraud would be communicated to all zones on receipt of the final investigation report.
Status report sought
The zones/production units were told to send a status report on any shortcomings on the bills passed or claimed within 15 days for further action, the sources said.
The unearthing of the pay roll fraud comes days after the railways unearthed a major scam in the payment of wages to contract labourers. An inquiry is on based on specific information that contractors who engaged labourers for various railway works across the country paid them less than the prescribed amount under the Minimum Wages Act.
