Financial Fraud: EOW Books Six Over INR 60.60 Lakh Irregularities In Dindori Health Office

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has registered a case against six persons, including two former chief medical and health officers (CMHOs) and a district health officer (DHO), for allegedly siphoning off Rs 60.60 lakh from the Dindori district health office, officials said on Wednesday.

The action followed a complaint alleging financial irregularities involving personnel assigned as creators, verifiers and approvers on the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) portal.

Investigations revealed that the six manipulated portal entries, inflated salary bills, made fictitious entries and processed payments without legal entitlement.

Without verifying official records, they entered inflated amounts using manual calculation sheets. They allegedly processed Rs 49.89 lakh as arrears by recording negative values on the portal, although the arrears had already been paid manually.

Unauthorised changes to payment heads, without official orders, resulted in additional disbursements of Rs 5.89 lakh towards non-practising allowance and house rent allowance.

In July 2024, Rs 4.78 lakh was paid to assistant grade-3 employee Gulab Prasad Sahu through the "After July 2017 Arrear Screen", without legal sanction or supporting documents. Sahu was then in charge of the accounts section.

The six also allegedly made duplicate or erroneous vendor payments.

Officials said the transactions violated the MP Treasury Code and MP Financial Code and were intended to secure personal gains or benefit others.

The suspects allegedly approved bills using digital signatures, disregarding eligibility rules and enabling direct transfers of government funds into their own accounts.