KADAPA: With three sub-registrars and two junior assistants getting suspended from service for no fault of theirs in a fake challan case in Kadapa, department officials and staff across the state seem to be losing their sleep over the faulty implementation of the Centralised Funds Management System (CFMS).
Two junior assistants and three sub-registrars working at the Kadapa rural and urban registration office have been suspended for their alleged failure in detecting a fake challan scam in the department.
A document writer who swindled revenue of the registrations department to the tune of Rs 1.08 crore was recently arrested by the police. However, the sub-registrars could not identify the fraud committed by the document writer due to errors in the CFMS system.
The CFMS system of payment was introduced in the registration department in 2018. Under this system, customers can pay the challan amount through net banking. When a person pays the specified amount in CFMS through net banking, he gets a print copy of the challan number with 11 digits for the paid amount. Later, the document writer gets a print copy of the challan. The accused document writer tampered with the figures and produced them before the registration office.
Nowhere in the online system of the sub-registrar's office can it be known how much sum of the challans was paid. Only the challan number is visible. The registration authorities verify the 11-digit challan number, and if it is correct, they go for the next column.
Guruprakash, who is an assistant to document writer Ramakrishna, created the fake challans. A total of Rs 1.08 crore was misappropriated by him with a total of 100 registrations. Over the past four days, officials examined about 3,000 documents that have been registered since January 2021 in the presence of superiors.
It was found that Guruprakash tampered with the print copies and re-uploaded them in PDF format to the registration department portal. Neither the sub-registrars nor the office staff found these discrepancies. These fake challans came to light only from one document writer's registration details.
A senior official in the registration department told this newspaper that sub-registrars usually go to the CFMS website once a month and log into the drawing and disbursing officer’s (DDO) account to check receipts. With errors in the CFMS system, the officials were unable to find the discrepancies, he said. Kadapa DIG Giribabu issued orders on Saturday evening suspending five employees in connection with fake challans at registration offices in Kadapa district.
Sub-registrars Chandra Mohan, Subba Reddy and Harikrishna, junior assistants Ratnakumari and Sukumar have been suspended. The technical error in the CFMS system is said to be the reason for these officials failing to detect the irregularities.
