Software glitches disrupt functioning of Thiruvananthapuram district treasury

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Software errors continue to disrupt the functioning of state treasuries posing difficulties to customers and staff. Salary and pension payments had gone haywire in the beginning of this month and the problem is yet to be solved completely.

"Sometimes the software hangs for hours resulting in a large queue of customers. On Monday, around 30 pensioners who were given tokens could not be given payment. They were asked to come the next day. Many times the customers get angry and argue with the staffers," said an officer at a sub-treasury in the district.

In a bid to clear the backlog, the treasuries director has asked all treasuries to remain open on all holidays this month. They have been asked to work from 10 am to 2 pm and all types of transactions will be conducted on the day.

The working hours can be extended as per the discretion of the treasury officer. After the financial fraud at the Vanchiyoor treasury, government had initiated functional and security audits on the banking software.

Even after the audits, errors continue. Also, a fraud similar to the Vanchiyoor sub-treasury, was reported from the Karuvarakundu sub-treasury in Malappuram. In the incident reported at the Vanchiyoor sub-treasury, a staffer siphoned off Rs 2 crore from the district collector's account utilising the lapses in the IFMS software used for banking activities in treasuries.

At Karuvarakundu, an office attendant defrauded a pensioner of Rs 2.88 lakh misusing the latter’s online banking facility.