RANCHI, April 10 -- The Jharkhand government has uncovered a massive financial irregularity involving the illegal withdrawal of over Rs.18.5 crore from state coffers across two districts, prompting the finance department to overhaul the salary withdrawal process. The fraud, which spans several years, came to light following a database review and reports from the Principal Accountant General's office. Investigations revealed that Rs.3.15 crore was illegally withdrawn from the Bokaro Superintendent of Police (SP) office between May 2024 and December 2025. Even more staggering is the discovery of a long-term scam in the Hazaribagh SP office, where Rs.15.41 crore was siphoned off over the past eight years . According to a circular issued by Prashant Kumar, Secretary to the Government, a copy of which is available with the Hindustan Times, the perpetrators exploited several systemic loopholes. Salaries were paid to retired personnel or individuals never employed by the office. In Bokaro, the birth date in a retired employee's GPF profile was altered to show them as active. Individuals were paid significantly higher monthly salaries than their sanctioned pay scales. Bill clerks diverted government funds directly into the bank accounts of their wives or relatives. Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs) were found sharing their secure OTPs with clerks, or in some cases, both officers used the same mobile number for transactions. The Finance Department noted that many of these clerks had remained in the same post for 10-12 years, allowing the malpractice to go undetected. To combat this, the government has now mandated that any bill clerk stationed in one office for more than three years must be transferred immediately. The government instructed that immediately, no salary bills will be cleared by the Treasury without a mandatory certificate from the DDO confirming it. Apart from this, directions were issued for physical verification of the employee's active status against the service book, verification of pay scales against authorized pay slips and validation of bank account numbers against physical passbooks or cheques. "The department is also implementing technical blocks on relevant portals to prevent such recurrences," the order stated....