Punjab Welfare Board Accidentally Transfers INR 25 Lakh Twice to Workers’ Accounts: How It Happened and Recovery Plans

Last updated on May 26th, 2025 at 03:39 am

Due to an unexpected administrative error, the Punjab Building and Other Construction Workers’ (BOCW) Welfare Board wrongly transferred the deposited amount of INR 25.49 lakh into the bank accounts of 182 registered construction workers on two separate instances. The erroneous transfer occurred under the scheme of welfare and was initiated upon by the board. They deposited the amount first for INR 25.49 lakh on 25 March, followed by the same transaction in their bank accounts the next day after four days.

As explained by officials, the second payment was processed due to a fault in the digital handling of the transaction by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). Ironically the confusion was brought to light by an alert official in fact, the officer in charge did not follow up on the transaction. By the time the bank was contacted and directed to reverse the second payment, many workers already withdrew the money, making it difficult to recover.

Subsequently, the department has written to the bank requesting the debit of overdrawn amounts from the workers’ accounts. However, success in recovering the whole amount has been problematic. “By the time the bank could act upon our request, a lot of workers had already accessed the funds,” said a senior Labour Department official.

The Principal Secretary of the Department of Labour, Manvesh Singh Sidhu is optimistic in saying, “We are trying to recover the money. There will be no loss to the exchequer.” An assistant labour commissioner, who confirmed the incident stated, “We have already issued official letters for recovery,” adding that he was fairly confident the department would recover the total amount fairly soon.

“The board is trying to get in touch with the workers. Cooperation is hoped from them. The timeline for recovery is still not known, but we can assure accountability and public money will be recovered,” said the assistant labour commissioner.