Chitrakoot pension scam: Treasury dept plans pension, arrears as separate heads
The aim is to curb frauds similar to the one exposed in Chitrakoot where ₹43.1 crore was fraudulently transferred into 93 pension accounts over the years in name of arrears
With the aim of curbing frauds similar to the one exposed in Chitrakoot where ₹43.1 crore was fraudulently transferred into 93 pension accounts over the years in name of arrears and remained undetected between August 3, 2018, and October 6, 2025, the treasury department is now planning to make pension and arrears as separate heads.
“The probe has revealed that the accused had managed to send the excess amount into pension accounts while showing it as arrear for pension. This amount was sent along with the pension amount which might have not been noticed over the years before it was detected during a special audit,” said director, treasury, and special secretary, department of finance, VK Singh.
Pension and arrear amount till now is transferred into beneficiaries’ account together, making it difficult to identify if additional money, other than pension, is being given. Singh said, “We are now working to make pension and arrears as separate heads. Also arrears and due drawn, the amount taken, are shown separately and are taken automatically by the server and not fed manually.”
In many cases, the accused had changed the due drawn amount manually thereby giving way to multi-crore fraud since 2018. Despite annual audits, embezzlement of pension funds worth ₹43.13 crore from the Chitrakoot treasury remained undetected for over seven years.
“For making pension and arrear separate, changes will be done in server,” said Singh. The large-scale fraud came to fore after a special audit team from the accountant general’s office carried out an unannounced inspection between October 6 and 10 this year.
The department of finance has requested for a probe by cyber cell as only about ₹3.61 crore could be recovered so far out of the total ₹43.13 crore, transferred fraudulently.
