GHMC Detects ₹6.92 Crore in Duplicate TReDS Payments to Contractors

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has acknowledged duplicate and excess payments made to contractors through the Trade Receivables Discounting System, confirming that the total amount involved stands at ₹6.92 crore in Hyderabad.

The civic body addressed reports that had alleged irregular transactions exceeding ₹100 crore, clarifying that the actual discrepancies were confined to 78 invoices amounting to ₹6.92 crore.

According to municipal officials, the vast majority of the disbursed funds has already been recovered. Out of the total sum, ₹6.83 crore connected to 74 separate invoices has been successfully retrieved by the corporation. The remaining balance of ₹8.35 lakh, which corresponds to four invoices, has been received through demand drafts and is in the process of being credited back into the municipal corporation's general fund.

A preliminary vigilance enquiry conducted into the matter established that the duplicate and excess disbursements occurred after the standard maker-checker control process was bypassed. The enquiry also pointed out an absence of systematic reconciliation between the three external TReDS platforms, the municipal corporation's internal Enterprise Resource Planning system, and the civic body's general fund.

Investigators further determined that the built-in duplicate-detection systems implemented by the TReDS platform providers failed to function effectively. These automated mechanisms did not halt invoices from being submitted and uploaded more than once, including instances where identical invoices were processed across different platforms.

The municipal corporation stated that these financial irregularities were uncovered internally. The lapses came to light during an online payment system validation process undertaken as part of a wider ERP and software upgrade, accompanied by the segregation of accounts and an administrative review led by the additional commissioner of finance.