Treasury Accounting and Management System of Government of Bihar e-khazana

Transcription

1 Treasury CHAPTER Accounting 33 and Management System 357 Treasury Accounting and Management System of Government of Bihar e-khazana Kanhaiya Pandey Senior System Analysts Ashok Kumar Mohanty Technical Director and Project Coordinator Saurabh Gupta State Informatics Officer and Project Leader National Informatics Centre Bihar State Centre, Patna, Bihar ABSTRACT Indiscipline in Finance Department led to misappropriation of accounts, improper fund management and late submission of classified account to the Accountant General up to 24 months, as per the CAG guidelines. The delay in account submission is an extremely serious problem, which has a number of consequences having serious impact on the overall planning of the Government. Delay causes problems in management of resources of the government, which are scarce already. The entire financial planning of the government resources goes futile, as the real resource position at any given point of-time was never transparent. As a result crucial decisions like reappropriation, head wise fund balance; department wise budgetary allocation and reconciliation of expenditure etc. were very hazy. This situation attracted infamous fodder scam in early Nineties. The e-khazana system introduced as rescuer and generated online fund management, reconciliation with budget,- timely submission of classified accounts. e-khazana system facilitates the sharing of accounts with excise, registration, commercial taxes and transport department at govt. exchequer. e-khazana has a powerful fire-and forget capability where by if certain steps are insured; the accounts are accurate and dependable. e-khazana will make the-timely submission of classified head wise monthly treasury accounts at a definite reality. 1. Introduction Project conceptualization Infamous fodder scam: In the absence of any financial discipline within the treasury, fund management was totally collapsed leading to infamous

2 358 Compendium of e-governance Initiatives in India fodder scam in early nineties. All types of activities like preparation of budget, treasury accounting and Provident Fund subscriber s account slip generation at finance department was manual. It was very difficult task to monitor the expenditure and receipts at Finance Department level. There was no mechanism for data convergence from treasuries and it s collation at the level of Finance Commissioner within defined-time period. The treasuries accounting was delayed by months in sending monthly accounts. Government was not in a position to track their financial position at any point of-time. The PF accounts of the subscriber were delayed over years. Thus the control, monitoring and analysis of the data for revenue administration for better expenditure monitoring was very strenuous and risky for the department and it was a challenge for the Government to overcome. Manipulation of Challans: In the manual process, reconciliation of challans deposited in treasuries with respect to departments of Excise, Sales Tax, Registration, Civil Deposits, etc., as required by respective departments could not be reconciled against the challans deposited in the treasuries and those produced in the department by the dealers leading to fraud at different levels. In this process Government used to loose huge amount of money. Non-updation of GPF Accounts: Schedules of deductions like GPF etc are not sent to concerned offices resulting in non maintenances of GPF accounts on a regular basis. This forces the government to prepare the accounts on the basis of what is described as collateral evidence the statement of deductions individual-wise issued by the same treasury officers. The government is losing large sums of money every year, as it has to pay penalinterest rates in large number of cases due to courts orders. Even otherwise the government has to pay up-to-date interest in case of final withdrawal cases. The more the delay, the more is the interest payment. 2. Project Vision, Stakeholders, Objectives and Services The vision of the computerization in treasury is to control the expenditure through-timely sending the accounts to AG. Matching the allocated budget to the treasury figure at the-time of passing the bill. This will also help in avoiding duplication in work and checking the fraudulent withdrawals by introducing unique and centralized DDO code. This also led to the creation of employee database along with their personal profile. The following are the stake holders Internal: Finance Department, Govt. of Bihar, Directorate of GPF, GoB, External: NIC, NICSI, Principal Accountant General, GoI, Bihar State Electricity Board, State Transport Corporation, Registered Dealers of Commercial Taxes, Stamp Vendors, DDOs of other Departments

3 Treasury Accounting and Management System 359 The objective of the computerization in treasury is to control the expenditure through-timely sending the accounts to AG.In this process the allocated budget is checked at treasury at the-time of passing the bill. This will eliminate the duplication in work and will check the fraudulent withdrawals by introducing unique and centralized DDO code. This will lead to creation of employee database along with their personal profile The objective of the automation of entire revenue administration, i.e, from budgeting to Expenditure monitoring through treasuries by capturing each and every transaction of payment and receipt with all necessary validations. The objective is to make the system so intelligent that it can track the abnormality, fraud drawl and prevent the excess drawl by giving the warning and alert message to avoid the delay of data flow in the workflow based system. This will also help in capturing the data as and when required in the process After achievement of up-to-date treasury accounting and, generation of GPF slip, finance department will be in a position for the on-line connectivity of all treasuries/sub-treasuries/general Provident fund offices to the data centre The system should be such that there should be online validation of DDO code, appropriate payment head, online query of stamp vender transactions, online monitoring of GPF schedule and data transfer to GPF Online connectivity of all treasuries/sub-treasuries/general Provident fund offices to the data centre along with State wise compilation and MIS of all treasury figures of revenue receipt and expenditure 3. Public Private Partnership (PPP) Finance Department earmarked Rs cores for replication of the e- Khazana in all treasuries and Sub-treasuries of the State. 4. Necessity/Needs In the absence of any financial discipline within the treasury fund management was totally collapsed leading to infamous fodder scam in early Nineties. All type of activities like preparation of budget, treasury accounting and Provident Fund subscriber s account slip generation at finance department was manual. It was very difficult task to monitor the Expenditure and Receipts at Finance Department level. There was no mechanism for data convergence from treasuries and its collation at the level of Finance Commissioner within defined-time period. The treasuries accounting was delayed by months in sending monthly accounts. Government was not in a position to track their financial position at any point of-time. The PF accounts of the subscriber

4 360 Compendium of e-governance Initiatives in India were delayed over years. Thus the control, monitoring and analysis of the data for revenue administration for better expenditure monitoring was very strenuous and risky for the department and it was a challenge for the Government to overcome it. 5. Milestones Project Management Structure A project management team was constituted for management of the project. Table 1 1 Additional Finance Commissioner GOB Part-time 2 Deputy Secretary Finance Part-time 3 Shri. A.K. Mohanty, Technical Director Full-time 4 Dr. Kanhaiya Pandey, Senior System Analyst Full-time 6. Implementation Strategy for pilot to roll out The Treasury Accounts of all the treasuries of Bihar was delayed by more than 7 to 8 months. The target was fixed by Accountant General of Bihar for updating of Accounts which was a difficult task for the staffs of the treasuries due to manpower constraints and the manual process. NIC was requested by the Finance Department to take up Sinchai Bhawan treasury on pilot basis, where accounting is delayed more than a year. Within 4 months of taking over the task, NIC streamlined the account reporting at Sinchai Bhawan based on this success Finance Department earmarked Rs cores for replication of the same in all treasuries of the State. Within a span of a year, all 41 treasuries and 17 sub-treasuries were powered with e- Khazana application of NIC and accounting reporting became streamlined. 7. Capacity Building To look after the smooth implementation of the project and any change requirements generated in due course of project implementation, a coordination committee consisting of key officials form finance Department and NIC was constituted. In addition to other approaches, committee also reviewed the progress of the project in the form of Monthly meeting

5 Treasury Accounting and Management System 361 Review of the documents/reports received by the department Complaints/suggestions through /phone The following team was functional for smooth implementation of the Project. Project Management Table 2 1 Additional Finance Commissioner GOB Part-time 2 Deputy Secretary Finance Part-time 3 A.K. Mohanty, Technical Director Full-time 4 Kanhaiya Pandey,Senior System Analyst Full-time Project Policy Level Table 3 1 Finance Commissioner Government of Bihar Part-time 2 Additional Finance Commissioner Part-time 3 Saurabh Gupta, SIO Part-time 4 A.K. Mohanty, Technical Director Full-time Change Management Table 4 1 Additional Finance Commissioner GOB Part-time 2 Deputy Secretary Finance Department Part-time 3 A.K. Mohanty, Technical Director Full-time 4 Kanhaiya Pandey,Senior System Analyst Full-time Operational training to all the officers and staff of the treasuries and sub-treasuries was provided in 12 batches for 5 days each was given on e-khazana Software for smooth implementation of the Software. On a continuation basis with in a period of 3 months all staff and Officers of treasuries were trained and they are independently handling the job. 8. Evaluation and Measurement Analysis of the feedback collected and presented below indicates the level of effectiveness and satisfaction of the e-khazana provides to the department in achieving their objectives.

6 362 Compendium of e-governance Initiatives in India Fig Issues and their Solutions Following lessons were learned in the process of computerization. Need of process re-engineering was felt and initiated to improve the service to the subscribers. In the absence of clarity in the requirements from the user prototyping of software application development is the key for translation of the process existing in the department. The experience speaks that user must own and nature the application rather supervising the developments and implementations. There is a need for timely review of the project progress to stick to the schedule. Appropriate level of capacity is essential to sustain the improvement in the product 10. Road Ahead e-khazana implemented in Sinchai Bhawan treasury on pilot basis. After successful implementation as pilot Finance Department earmarked Rs.6.02 cores for replication of the same in all treasuries of the State. With in a span of a year, all 41 treasuries and 17 sub-treasuries were powered with e- Khazana application of NIC and accounting reporting became streamlined. 11. Status and Results Present status The e-khazana S/W were successfully implemented in 41 treasuries and 17 sub-treasuries of Bihar intime.

7 Treasury Accounting and Management System Specific Achievements during the Year The complete updation of treasury accounts and availability of data at Finance Department in-time has already created positive impact in the Department. Head wise and treasury wise expenditure and receipts with respect to the allocated budget monitoring have been convenient. This is now treated as an automated tool in the hand of the financial planners 13. Future Plans for Readers Seeking more Information on Project State-wise compilation and MIS of Treasury figure of revenue receipts and expenditure on web. Planning to provide all the allotments on web site so that treasury officers can verified genuineness of the of the allotments Provision of online allotment adjustment with the budget figure at the lowest level A project on Bihar Revenue Administration Intranet (BRAIN) has been submitted to Govt. for integrated, centralized and web-based solution for all the revenue concerned departments of Govt. of Bihar for better monitoring of revenue and expenditure