ARTICLE AD BOX
Surat: The Kotak Mahindra bank is mired in controversy due to the serious blunder committed by the bank officials. The bank deposited crores of rupees of the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) into the wrong accounts of the contractors due to the last minute rush following the banking closing activity on March 31.
When this serious mistake came to the attention of the authorities of the SMC, the entry of crores of rupees that had been paid incorrectly was corrected by contacting the bank. Despite the bank’s fault in the entire case, the municipal authorities tried to clean up the mess by internally transferring seven deputy accountants and 10 assistant accountants working in the accounts department.
Surat Municipal Corporation carries out development works worth crores of rupees, for which payments are made to contractors. Since payments worth crores of rupees have to be made in the last days of the financial year, the workload on the municipal officials also increases amid the rush of contractors.
The target set for development works in the financial year 2025-26 has not been achieved, but more than 50 contractors who carried out development works were stranded for a few hours. The accounts department officials deposited a total of five cheques with a list of 240 contractors in Kotak Mahindra Bank. The contractors handed over the cheques to Kotak Bank mentioned the amount to be paid to each contractor, but the bank official had entered the amount written in two out of five cheques in a single list. That is, two cheques were entered in one.
However, a total of Rs 20 crore was wrongly paid to more than 50 contractors. The contractors were also happy at one point as more amount was deposited in their accounts, while on the other hand, the officials of the SMC were shocked to know about this.
An automatic system is in place in Kotak Mahindra Bank. Mapping is done with the link of the account holders and it is updated with the software. Not only this, the reconciliation is also auto-generated to see whether the money entered has actually been deposited in the right account or not. The question is whether the list of more than 50 contractors given by the Municipal Corporation was deposited in the accounts of the right contractors or whether reconciliation was done the next day.
However, the administrative authorities of the Municipal Corporation immediately drew the attention of the officials of Kotak Mahindra Bank and gave an ultimatum to correct the error within 24 hours After admitting that crores of rupees had been embezzled, the bank officials employed their employees and contacted all the banks where the accounts of the 50 contractors were located and placed them on the account holders, that is, they made a stop payment in one go.
They corrected their mistake by reverse-entering the Rs.20 crore rupees paid to the 50 contractors. Even though the mistake was of Kotak Mahindra Bank, the municipal authorities transferred 17 people, including the accountants who had been stuck for years. The duties of seven deputy accountants of the accounts department were changed. The orders for the transfer of Hitesh Kumar Dumaswala, Nekazad Dordi, Jignesh Patel, Hemaben Jariwala as well as Gaurav Kumar Chauhan, Pritesh Patel, Darshang Shah, Rohan Kumar Chanchadiya, Falguni Soni, Mumtaz Bibi Malek, Chandan Kumar Patel, Ganesh Patil, Dharmesh Mistry, Hemang Mehta, Kiran Kumar Patel, Dharmesh Kumar Rathod, Pragnesh Kumar Chaudhary were issued .
It has been proven once again that the functioning of the accounts department of Surat Municipal Corporation is not foolproof. The payments made to the contractors doing the development works are made only through cheques, in which a single cheque is written and a list of contractors is sent to the bank, in which the details of how much amount is to be paid to which contractors against the total amount of the cheque are also given to the bank. The bank pays the amount written against the name of the contractor to the contractor. The question is about the cross-verification work of the officials of the accounts department of the Municipal Corporation. Cross-verification is extremely important when payments of crores of rupees are being made because, if crores of rupees are written in a single check and there is a list of contractors with it, if the contractor’s account had been checked to see whether the amount as per the bill was deposited or not, a scam of crores of rupees would not have occurred.
English (US) ·