State Govt Orders Probe After Aadhaar Seeding Detects 40 Employees Drawing Double Salaries
A few such instances were also detected within the DGP office raising further questions about how the duplication escaped detection even in police department.
Hyderabad:The government has ordered an urgent departmental probe after it emerged that at least 40 Aadhaar cards were linked to two employees each. Over a period of three months, these 80 employees had been paid salaries between 1.5 lakh and 5 lakh each.
The issue emerged when officials were seeding Aadhaar details of the employees in the Integrated Financial Management and Information System (IFMIS). The government identified 40 Aadhaar numbers linked to two employee records each, official sources said.
A few such instances were also detected within the DGP office raising further questions about how the duplication escaped detection even in police department.
In some cases, the same Aadhaar number was reportedly linked to a male employee in one record and a female employee in another. Some records even showed employees with names associated with different religions sharing the same Aadhaar number. Significantly, the employees concerned were regular staff drawing salaries under the ‘010’ head.
Officials in the finance department found that such employees were spread across key departments, including police, revenue. education, panchayat raj and public health.
The findings have raised questions over whether the irregularities were the result of deliberate fraud by employees, possible involvement of officials in the finance department, or a technical error either in Aadhaar records or state government systems.
The government has taken a serious view of the issue and directed all departments to conduct urgent inquiries. Chief Secretary Sanjay Jaju issued a circular instructing departments to initiate stringent action under the Telangana Civil Services Rules if employees were found to have concealed facts and drawn more than one salary.
He also directed authorities to recover the illegally drawn amounts from the employees concerned and initiate criminal proceedings wherever warranted.
The Chief Secretary noted that the cases could involve offences such as fraud, forgery, tampering with official records, breach of trust and misappropriation of government funds.
He warned that strict action would also be taken against officials who facilitated fraudulent double salary payments or knowingly remained negligent. The departments have been asked to submit their reports within a week.
Government sources said that if the issue had been a routine technical error, it could have been corrected internally, but the decision to order departmental inquiries indicated the possibility of irregularities. They expected greater clarity after the preliminary inquiries.
The departmental inquiries are expected to establish whether the cases resulted from deliberate manipulation of employee records, collusion by officials, identity-related irregularities or technical errors in the Aadhaar-seeding and IFMIS systems.
The government warned that employees found guilty of fraud will face recovery of the excess salary as well as disciplinary and criminal action, while officials found to have facilitated or knowingly ignored the irregularities will also face stringent action.
