BENGALURU: Three railway employees, including a senior official, of the Bengaluru East railway station have been suspended and a case booked against them by the Railway Protection Force (RPF) for misappropriating government funds to the tune of Rs 65.25 lakh.
The shocking shortage in cash for tickets sold came to light when an audit team of the Bangalore Railway Division conducted a surprise check into the daily transactions at the station.
A case has been booked against Commercial Supervisor Vijaykumar Terrence, and two booking clerks Sanjay Karkate and Vasikaran in the Special Court for Economic Offences.
M Suresh, Senior Divisional Security Commissioner of RPF said a case has been booked against the three for misappropriation of railway funds under Section (3) of the Railway Property Unlawful Possession Act.
The sum of Rs 65.25 lakh is said to have been taken away from the booking office on a regular basis between March 20 and April 13.
“Since the East station gets a daily ticket revenue ranging between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh only, it is shocking that the employees were able to take away such a huge sum from the ticketed revenue without anyone noticing it,” said Suresh. When the misuse of funds took place, the main accused, Vijayakumar, was officially on ‘sick leave’ but came to the ticketing office daily.
The cash is supposed to be handed over daily to a private firm for depositing in a bank and receipts detailing daily collections need to be sent to the commercial branch. “The auditors came across the fraud when they realised that the daily collection receipts had not been sent to the branch for many days,” the top cop said.
An inquiry was held by the Senior Divisional Commercial Manager and the three were taken into custody for a week from April 15 by the RPF.
“Vijayakumar has confessed that he was in urgent need of money to repay some loans and he had intended to replace the money taken shortly. He has now handed over Rs 20 lakh to the department to replace a portion of the money taken,” Suresh said. He added, “It is not clear if the other two have taken any money but they are guilty of knowing about the supervisor appropriating the money and choosing to keep quiet about it.”