30. PAY & ACCOUNTS OFFICE

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1 3. PAY & ACCOUNTS OFFICE 3.1. Introduction: The Pay and Accounts Office (P&AO), Rajya Sabha, was constituted on 1 st October 1955 under the scheme of separation of Accounts from Audit. It functions as a Treasury cum Departmental Accounts Office of Rajya Sabha Secretariat and as Controller of Exchequer. All payments and accounting of transactions relating to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat and Pay and Accounts Office are made by this Office Main Functions: The Pay and Accounts Office, Rajya Sabha consists of two Sections, namely, Accounts Section and Audit Section Accounts Section: The main functions, after the reallocation of work, are as follows: a. Preparation of Union Government Finance Account, Appropriation Account, Statement for Central Transactions and Journal Entries thereof to be submitted to the office of the CGA as per prescribed time schedule besides compiling the monthly Civil Accounts of Rajya Sabha Circle by 15 th of every month. b. All Pension related aspects including family pension and other issues related thereto. c. GPF/CPF related issues. d. Preparation, submission and finalization of budget estimates and revised estimates relating to Revenue Receipt & Public Account heads, Interest Receipts and Loan Repayments and Pension head pertaining to the Rajya Sabha Circle of Accounts. e. Allocation of Codes of the Heads of Accounts operational in the Rajya Sabha Circle of Accounts including Computer Codes (Numeric Accounts Code, Major Head Serial Code and SCCD Code, etc.) as advised by M/o Finance from time to time. f. Scrutiny of Scrolls received from the bank and maintenance of Cheque Outstanding register as well as correspondence/liaison with the accredited Bank. g. Work relating to Inward/Debit Claims as well as Outward Claims. h. Maintenance of DDR Ledger, Valuables Register and Suspense Register. i. Regular monitoring of Budget of the Rajya Sabha Circle of Accounts. j. Management and compilation of NPS accounts of all officials who joined after k. Authorization of payment of pension to ex-members of Parliament, Rajya Sabha after it is sanctioned by MS&A Section. l. Auditing of Bills relating to Loans and Advances to Members, Rajya Sabha and Officers and staff of Rajya Sabha Secretariat (HBA/Motor Car Advance/Motorcycle/Scooter/Moped Advance/Cycle Advance/Computer Advance Bills) and compilation of Broadsheet Audit Section: The main functions, after the reallocation of the work, are as follows: a. To diarise all bills and letters received in the Section on COMPACT software or DMIS, as the case may be. b. Pre check/audit of the bills received from the Establishment (A/Cs) & Budget Section, Members Salaries and Allowances Section (M.S&A Section) and Pay and Account Office and arranging payments thereof after pre-check. c. Auditing of Salary and Domestic/Foreign Travel Expenses Bills relating to the Hon ble Chairman/Deputy Chairman/Members of Rajya Sabha and Officers and staff of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat and Pay and Accounts Office. d. Auditing of LTC Advance/Adjustment/Final Bills, Children Education Allowance/Tuition Fee Reimbursement Bills, OTA/Special Allowance/Other Allowance Bills in respect of Officers and staff of both Rajya Sabha Secretariat and Pay and Accounts Office. e. Auditing of Contingent Bills pertaining to payment to be made to various private parties and other payments which are booked under the Office Expenses head of Chairman, Members, Leader of Opposition, Rajya Sabha Secretariat and Pay and Accounts Office. f. Auditing of Bills relating to Conveyance and Medical claims. 23

2 g. Invoices of National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL) in regard to the air journeys performed by the Chairman/Deputy Chairman/LOP and Members, Rajya Sabha and Officers and Staff of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat as well as Pay and Accounts Office. h. Cancellation, revalidation and stop payment of various cheques issued from this Section. i. Maintenance of service books, leave accounts and acquaintance rolls in respect of the establishment of Pay and Accounts Office. j. Maintenance of accounts of short term and long term loans and advances sanctioned and paid to Members, Rajya Sabha and officers and staff in the Rajya Sabha Circle of Accounts. k. Pre-check/Auditing of all Bills received from the RSTV Channel and arranging payments thereof. A detailed list of bills processed in P&AO during the year 2 vis-à-vis the comparative figures of year 2 is at Annexure Goals: The Pay and Accounts Office has the responsibility to ensure that no payment is made in excess of the Budget Grant unless it is covered by an advance from the Contingency Fund of India and also to ensure that payment is made within a reasonable time. The Secretary-General, Rajya Sabha is the Chief Accounting Authority of the Rajya Sabha Circle of Accounts. He discharges this responsibility with the assistance of the Joint Secretary & Financial Advisor and the Pay and Accounts Officer. The Pay and Accounts Officer ensures that the incurring of expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of India are governed by the following essential conditions: i) Provision of funds: That there is provision of funds authorized by the competent authority fixing the limits within which expenditure can be incurred; ii) Provision of Law: That the expenditure incurred conforms to the relevant provisions of the Act, Constitution and the laws made there under and are also in accordance with the financial rules and regulations framed by the competent authority; and iii) Appropriate Financial Sanction: That there exists sanction, either special or general, accorded by the competent authority authorizing expenditure. Besides, the Pay and Accounts Officer has also the overall responsibility to ensure that the accounting work is performed as per the rules, procedure and time limits laid down in the Civil Accounts Manual and according to the Ministry of Finance (Department of Expenditure) orders issued from time to time Scope for improvement Provision for online access to members to view the status of their bills/payments. Each and every bill received from Members are processed by the M.S.&A Section through a specialized software. The same is the case in P&AO also. However, if a Member wants to know the status of his bill, he is not able to do so in the existing software. This issue has been engaging the attention of both the sections for quite some time. After a thorough discussion with the NIC, MS&A has now operationalised an entirely new software by which the members would be able to trace their bills. This section will send the details of Bill No., Cheque no., date and amount of the payment to the MS & A section on a daily basis to enable them to upload in their software which will reflect in the Member s account Strength Analysis: The Pay and Accounts Office has a separate identity and separate budgetary allocation and functions closely in co-ordination with the Rajya Sabha Secretariat. The workload of P&AO has increased enormously particularly after the introduction and constitution of 24

3 Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committees and also after the introduction of Secretarial Assistance Service to about 245 Hon ble Members. Recently, Rajya Sabha Television (RSTV) has also come into being due to which the workload of Audit Section has increased further. Though the strength of the Secretariat has increased manifold but matching increase in the strength of Pay & Accounts Office has not been made. Nevertheless, this factor has not affected the quality of work. As custodian of funds, the Pay & Accounts Office ensures strict compliance of rules and regulations by all concerned. 3.5 Computerisation: The work of the Pay and Accounts Office with regard to compilation of Accounts has been fully computerized with the implementation of the COMPACT software w.e.f. 1st April 27. The COMPACT (PAO 2) software is being used extensively in this Office. Compilation of accounts, starting with the issuance of token numbers to the bills received for payment and ending with monthly consolidation of accounts and post consolidation adjustment, including passing of the bills is carried out in this software. In addition, it is also manually audited. Manual compilation is also being done in respect of all vouchers received from Rajya Sabha Secretariat and P&AO, having multiple heads of accounts like loans and advances, GPF, Suspense, PLI, NPS etc., wherein the schedules have to be separated from the bills and have to be distributed to the concerned Dealing Hand. GPF Accounts of all officials of the Secretariat have been fully computerized since April, 21. e-lekha Programme has also been implemented by Pay and Accounts Office wherein the Daily Accounts Abstract is forwarded to O/o CGA through e-lekha programme. e-lekha is a web based application that has been developed for the consolidation of Union Government accounts and maintenance of account codes. The requisite information is being regularly uploaded, by using elekha, onto a central database/ central server maintained by the O/o CGA. 3.6 Achievements: Monthly subscription of all the subscribers of NPS from January 2 to December, 2 have been posted on NSDL website. The cheques of Monthly Accumulation of NPS subscribers and matching government contribution are being forwarded to the trustee bank every month within the stipulated time frame. GPF Accounts have been fully computerized since April, 21 and all details have been made available on Intranet. This enables the officials to have access to their accounts at any point of time. Besides the above specific achievements, all payments relating to Members of Parliament and Rajya Sabha officials and contingent charges were made within the prescribed time frame after applying the relevant parameters of audit/pre-check. The accounting part was completed successfully and accounts were submitted to CGA office in due time. Pay and Accounts office has started filing monthly TDS return in the prescribed form (24G) with the Income Tax Department from 2 onwards. Filing this monthly return has enabled the respective DDOs to file their quarterly tax return with the IT Department. This has been made mandatory by the Income Tax Department. The monthly return was filed in the year 2 within the scheduled time. Consequent upon the implementation of 6 th Pay Commission and 4 th Parliamentary Pay Report, the revision of pension in respect of pre-26 retirees were pending due to some unavoidable and unforeseen reasons. However, last year, the Secretary-General was kind enough to appoint a consultant to carry out the pension revision process. This work was taken up earnestly and cases of these pensioners, around 2, who had filled in the requisite proforma were revised. In the case of other pensioners/family pensioners, CPAO has given a specific direction on how to proceed further. These cases have been taken up and the entire process will be completed this year. 25

4 3.7 Training: Refurbishing of knowledge skill from time to time is a vital necessity of any organisation. Keeping in view of the specialized nature of job being done in the Pay and Accounts Office i.e. maintenance of accounts and the audit/scrutiny of bills, periodic training programmes for the officials posted in Accounts and Audit Sections of P&AO have been undertaken. Training Courses/Programmes attended by P&AO officials during the last calendar year are given under: S. No. Name of the participant Training Course attended Duration of the course 1. Shri P. Narayanan, Pay and e-payment February 11-, Accounts Officer 2 2. Dr.(Smt.) Sunita Singh, i)stress Management September 16- Assistant Director 19, 2 ii) Customised Financial Management Programme September 9-, 2 3. Shri Rajesh Harit i) Customised Financial September 9-, Executive Officer (in situ) 4. Shri Raj Nath, Senior Executive Assistant (in situ) 6. Shri N K Kukreti. Cashier Management Programme 2 e-payment February 11-, 2 e-payment February 11-, 2 Place of Training INGAF, Delhi ISTM, Delhi NIFM, Faridabad NIFM, Faridabad INGAF, Delhi INGAF, Delhi 3.8 Budget Estimate and Expenditure for Head Amount (Rs) Purpose Salary 1,3,,/- Salary and other allowances of the Employees of P&AO. OTA 1,5,/- Payment on account of work done by P&AO Staff before or after duty hours. D.T. Exp 5,/- Payment in connection with Official tours undertaken by the staff of P&AO Office Exp 1,25,/- Contingent expenses such as Scooter/Taxi fare in connection with visits to different offices, binding & cheque printing charges etc. Medical 3,,/- Expenses in connection with advances and reimbursement of medical claims. Expenditure up to ,62,551/- 19,59/- NIL 19292/- 31,955/- 3.9 Miscellaneous: During 2, about 8 receipts were dealt with by Pay and Accounts Office. This Office maintained G.P. Fund Accounts, 1- CPF Accounts and 31-New Pension Scheme accounts. Service Books of all officials maintained by this Office have been verified and authenticated by the concerned Officers. Details of bills processed/audited during 2 in comparison with 2 and other miscellaneous matters/cases which have been dealt with by the Pay & Accounts Office is given at Annexure- 3.1 and Annexure- 3.2 respectively. 26

5 Annexure- 3.1 Details of bills processed/audited in by Pay & Accounts Office during 2 and 2. S No. Kind of Bill No. of bills passed 2 1. Hon ble Chairman 2. Hon ble Deputy Chairman 3. Hon ble Leader of Opposition 4. Members of Rajya Sabha Foreign Travel Salary Foreign Travel Bills NACIL Invoices Bills of Non-Official witnesses to Committees Committee Tour Bills Bills related to purchase of computer equipment No. of bills passed Members PAs Long term Advances Bills in r/o employees House Building Advance Motor Car Advance Motorcycle/Scooter Advance Computer Advance Rajya Sabha Secretariat 8. Pay and Accounts Office LTC Bills OTA/Special Allowance/Honorarium Bills Tuition Fees Reimbursement Bills Miscellaneous Bills NACIL Invoices Committee Tour Bills LTC Bills Miscellaneous Bills Tuition Fees Reimbursement Bills General Provident Fund Bills 9. Rajya Sabha Secretariat Contingent Bills RSTV Contingent Bills Pay and Accounts Office Contingent Bills G.P. Fund Bills of employees CPF Bills of employees Pension, Commutation & Gratuity bills of employees TOTAL

6 Other miscellaneous matters/cases S. No. Kind of Bill No. of bills passed 2 1. Fresh cases of Ex-MPs Pension entailing issuance of Pension Payment Orders 2. Other cases of ex-mps Pension Family Pension Residuary Pension Stoppage of Pension Annexure- 3.2 No. of bills passed Revision of Pension cases of ex-mps Miscellaneous receipts dealt related to pension of ex-mps Finalization of Pension Cases in r/o Rajya Sabha Sectt. Employees on their retirement including family pension cases. 6. Transfer of Pension payments of the employees to Public Sector Banks. 7. Computation of pension cases of empooyees on strength of Rajya Sabha Secretariat and Pay & Accounts Office 8. Gratuity cases of employees of Rajya Sabha Sectt Settlement of final payments of G.P. Fund accounts Settlement of final payments of C.P, Fund accounts Inward claims regarding settlement of chequs received from other Ministries/Departments Inward claims fully settled Outward claims set to other Ministries/Departments Outward claims settled. Total Cheques issued by P&AO Cheques for outstation payments Demand Drafts for outstation payments 3 3. Cancellation/Revalidation of Members PAs Salary cheques Stop payment of Members PAs Salary Cheques Return & Accounts Statements submitted to the concerned authorities Appropriation Statements Monthly Accounts Statements 4 4 Total

IX PAY & ACCOUNTS 43. PAY & ACCOUNTS OFFICE

IX PAY & ACCOUNTS 43. PAY & ACCOUNTS OFFICE 43.1. Introduction: The Pay and Accounts Office, Rajya Sabha, was constituted on 1 st October 1955 under the scheme of separation of Accounts from Audit. It