Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has stated that the office of AG (A&E) has debited ₹413.73 crore from the GPF subscribers numbering 68,020 in Andhra Pradesh.
Replying to an unstarred question by TDP MP Kesineni Srinivas (Nani) in the Lok Sabha on Monday, the Minister said that the amount was debited based on the input documents of March 2021 and March 2022, for withdrawal (reversal) of DA arrears credited earlier.
The Office of C&AG has informed that AG (A&E), A.P., maintains the GPF accounts of the State government employees as per AP GPF Rules. Withdrawals or debits and deposits or credits are accounted in the fund in terms of input documents (monthly accounts) received from the Treasuries of the Government of A.P. “All entries in the GPF subscriber accounts i.e. the deposits (credits) and withdrawals (debits), are done only as per input documents received from the Treasuries of the Government of Andhra Pradesh,” she said.
Mr. Nani asked whether it had come to the notice of the government that the office of Accountant General, Andhra Pradesh (A.P.) had permitted the State government to withdraw the amounts from individual GPF Accounts of A.P. government employees without any intimation or consent of employees during 2021 and 2022.
It may be recalled that a controversy broke out in June when government employees got messages about debit of amounts from their accounts. There were allegations that the government had withdrawn the money, a charge denied by the Special Chief Secretary (finance) S.S. Rawat.
The Andhra Pradesh Government Employees’ Association president K. Suryanarayana had alleged that the GPF amount was withdrawn from the accounts of the government employees without their consent.
