Shamini 
(C): Twitter-vijaita
In a shocking turn of events, nearly 50,000 government employees in the state of Madhya Pradesh have been unpaid for the past six months, triggering a wide ranging investigation into possible corruption at the administrative level. The 40,000 permanent and 10,000 temporary staff were given valid employee codes but have not been paid from the treasury, suggesting potentially that the employee records are fake.
The CTA has started an investigation through DDOs. Each DDO is to now certify that they have no unauthentic, ghost type employees on their rolls in their office.
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Salary Delay Raises Questions of Fraud
A total of INR 230 crore in pending salaries are now being officially investigated. While the odd few salaries may not be paid from time to time as a result of suspensions or deputations, officials are confident the total amount pending suggests there is a systemic issue at play potentially involving fake employee codes. If this is true, the scam would suggest broad scale corruption of the payroll system.
Curiously there have not been any genuine complaints from the affected employees, which adds to the mystery. A staff officer stated that true employees would typically reach out for clarity in cases like this, but with so many, their silence proves rather suspicious.
The state government is concerned that salaries could be drawn retroactively if the codes become active, which is both a serious fiscal and ethical risk. The purpose of the inquiry is to discover whether the anomaly arose from misappropriation or gross incompetence on behalf of an administrator.
As the investigation progresses, it is anticipated the inquiry’s findings will reveal the scope of the issue and an administrative or criminal sanction will occur if fraud is confirmed.
