PATNA, Oct. 17 -- The Bihar government has launched a massive verification drive of salaries and entitlements (allowances) for over 500,000 state employees, mainly in the education and home departments (police), after detecting irregularities during salary processing, officials familiar with the matter said. Officials added that details of employees, such as date of recruitment and posting, etc are being scrutinised and only after clearance their October salaries will be credited. This move is likely to delay salaries of many employees, while payments to those found responsible for irregularities may be withheld, officials added. In a letter dated October 9, finance department principal secretary Vinay Kumar asked both departments to ensure strict scrutiny of salary bills and take disciplinary and administrative action against responsible officials. "The salaries and allowances of all officers, teachers (including headmasters), non-teaching staff, security personnel, police officials and other employees, under the education and home departments must be scrutinised by the department's senior officers. This scrutiny shall be mandatory before the next month's salary payments are released," the letter said. "Appropriate disciplinary and administrative action must be ensured against any Maker, Checker or Approver found responsible for irregularities at any stage of salary processing. Recovery of excess payments must also be ensured," it added. Salary bills are processed online through the Human Resource Management System (HRMS) portal at the Maker', Checker' and Approver' levels, with payments subsequently made through the Comprehensive Financial Management System (CFMS), the letter stated. The directive was issued after complaints and audit reports flagged around 80 cases of higher salary withdrawal, well beyond entitlements, by employees in various districts whereas in certain cases, salaries were withdrawn in "ghost" names. Of the 80 cases of fraudulent withdrawals, 77 were detected in the education department, and around three were found in the home department (police). One case of salary withdrawal was detected in the office of the district primary education office in Bhagalpur where a junior employee (data operator) was found withdrawing additional salary in the name of his wife, who was not on the employee rolls. An FIR has been registered and further action is underway, sources said. Cases of higher entitlements (allowances) by employees in the education department have been detected in Saran, Patna and other districts, officials said. The allowances include dearness allowances, house rent allowances and transport in some categories. In the directive issued, all drawing and disbursing officers (DDOs) were asked to submit their reports after verifying each employee of the two departments mainly by October 31 or the government may withhold their salaries. "We have asked the DDOs to check for outliers in salary bills, if any plus the date of employment of the employees, and their entitlements. If any irregularity is found in previous salary bills or if higher entitlements have been claimed by any employee, recovery of the money will be done, and FIRs will be registered against them," the finance secretary said. There are an estimated 850,000 employees on the state government rolls with over 500,000 in total in the education and home departments; this number has increased in recent years due to higher recruitments of teachers in primary and secondary schools as well as vacancies in various state police posts. One officer, seeking anonymity, said the irregularities often occur at the level of data operators who feed salary data and, in many cases, manipulate it to create higher salary bills in connivance with senior staff employees involved in swindling government funds. Salaries are withdrawn from the treasuries and credited to employee accounts by the last date of every month. "The DDOs and senior officers would check each employee's data regarding the date of joining, posting, entitlements and pay grade. Only after this will the salary bill be issued. This is the instruction from the finance department," a senior finance department official said. The finance secretary maintained that the education and home departments (police) have already completed about 25% of their employee verification to date, and the verification of the rest will be done in the next few weeks. Reacting to the development, deputy chief minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav told reporters that the CAG had flagged irregularities in processing salary bills in the education department, prompting the finance department to direct it to scrutinise the salaries and allowances of all officers, teachers and non-teaching staff before releasing next month's payments. He, however, did not mention the home department. Yadav also holds the finance department portfolio....