Leading-digit distribution of bills departs from Benford expectation

Benford chi-square test evaluated this work against 855 comparable sanctions in West Bengal for the same category and financial year. The distribution of leading digits across an agency's invoices departs from the Benford expectation, a marker for manufactured figures. The residual for this record falls outside the learned tolerance, and the contribution breakdown below isolates which measured features carried the score.

1. 01Benford chi-square statistic+24.0
2. 02Round-figure bill share+16.5
3. 03Leading-digit 1 deficit+12.7
4. 04Bill count in the sample+10.7
5. 05Split-bill proximity+5.1

Contributions are additive against the cohort baseline; they sum to the composite score and are recomputed whenever the underlying record changes.

1. 02 Oct 2025Work sanctioned by the District Authority₹1.43 Cr · Bardhaman District Rural Development Agency
2. 02 Oct 2025First instalment released to the implementing agency₹67.28 L
3. 15 Feb 2026D-10 fired during the nightly scoring runBenford chi-square test · confidence 0.81
4. 15 Feb 2026Alert routed to District Collector cellResponse window 15 days