CAG flags Rs 68 lakh fraud in Kangra treasury

Misappropriation of funds amounting to Rs 68.11 lakh with regard to fraudulent withdrawal of pensions has come to light in the district treasury of Kangra district.

This was pointed out by Comptroller and Auditor General of India in its report (period ended March 2022), which was laid on the table of the House by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, who also holds the portfolio of Finance Department, in the Vidhan Sabha on Friday.

The CAG has found that this fraud occurred between March and July 2017, which was enabled by serious systemic and procedural lapses.

According to the audit, a computer operator fraudulently generated 19 bills without original sanctioning authorities, resulting in unauthorised withdrawals of Rs 56.72 lakh meant for 14 pensioners, and Rs 11.38 lakh relating to non-pensioners. The audit noted that the entire non-pensioner amount was transferred directly into the operator’s own bank account.

A departmental inquiry led to the recovery of Rs 11.38 lakh from the computer operator and Rs 27.1 lakh from several pensioners, still leaving an outstanding amount of Rs 29.61 lakh.

The CAG in its report stated the fraud was made possible due to the lack of an interface between the Accountant General (A&E) Office and Treasury databases. The pension details were manually entered into the Integrated Financial Management System- e-Pension module without uploading original authorities, enabling unauthorised bill generation.

While the department, in its March 2022 response, cited staff shortages, dependence on outsourced workers for bill preparation and software deficiencies—particularly the absence of an AG-developed interface, the auditors were not satisfied with this reply.

The report further pointed out that the guidelines under the Mission Mode Project (Treasury Computerisation) of the National e-Governance Plan mandated the Directorate of Treasuries, Accounts and Lotteries (DTAL) to create both the pension module and the interface with the C&AG, not the AG (A&E).

The audit further highlighted that DTAL’s failure to develop these interfaces forced treasuries to manually enter pension data. The system lacked safeguards against multiple payments without justification and did not auto-fetch previous payment details linked to the pension payment orders.