Now Reading: Telangana audit finds over Rs 1,100 crore PF diversion by agencies
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Telangana audit finds over Rs 1,100 crore PF diversion by agencies
A government audit and Aadhaar-based verification have revealed alleged irregularities involving over Rs 1,100 crore in provident fund contributions by private manpower agencies in Telangana. The scrutiny of around 1.6 lakh outsourcing…
The Story in Brief
A government audit and Aadhaar-based verification have revealed alleged irregularities involving over Rs 1,100 crore in provident fund contributions by private manpower agencies in Telangana. The scrutiny of around 1.6 lakh outsourcing employees across government departments found that over 60 percent either lacked PF accounts or their contributions had not been deposited regularly.
Preliminary findings indicate that agencies deducted employee PF shares and received employer contributions from the government but did not deposit them with the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation. The Aadhaar exercise also exposed discrepancies between payroll numbers and actual workers, suggesting ghost employees were used to draw salaries. Many agencies have since shut down, and the government has recommended legal action and recovery proceedings.
The Indian Opinion
The usual cries to scrap outsourcing agencies miss the real gap: no department ever cross-checked PF challans against Aadhaar verification. If ghost employees and withheld contributions persisted for years under the current system, simply removing middlemen will not fix broken monitoring. The test now is whether the government will prosecute its own contract officers, not just the agencies that shut shop and vanished.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
