Bhopal Municipal Corporation officials used SAP enterprise software — designed for Fortune 500 efficiency — to generate fake bills for vehicle repaints that never happened. The same trucks were shown as repainted so many times they should be exhibiting at Art Basel.
In what may be India's most technologically sophisticated scam, Bhopal Municipal Corporation's Additional Commissioner (Finance) Gunwant Sewatkar and accomplices allegedly siphoned ₹100 crore by generating fake e-bills through SAP software for repairs and repaints that existed only in the database. The genius was in choosing vehicle repainting — things can always be damaged again, leaving no trail. The same municipal trucks were apparently repainted so frequently in the system that they should have been luminous by now. The Lokayukta raided the server room, seized the SAP hard disk, and found fake firms linked to relatives of the accused receiving crores. Sewatkar has been removed and sent back to his parent department, presumably to explore new billing opportunities.