Srinagar
Finance Minister Dr Haseeb A Drabu while presenting his fourth budget Thursday said there has been the significant way forward in fiscal reforms of the state.
Talking about new systems introduced, Dr Drabu said “in my previous Budget, I had announced an integrated digital system of allocations, sanctions, verifications and payments. The allocations and sanctions are now running on BEAMS and PFMS,” and added that “for the verifications and payments system of IFMS substantial progress has been made and from 1st April 2018 all financial entitlements to all sections of people will be delivered only through PFMS or DBT portal.”
This, Dr Drabu said will coincide with the abolition of treasuries and replacing them with a Pay and Accounts (PAO) system. “Being a radical departure from the existing century-old system, it has taken some time to get all stakeholders on board, work out the payment process structure and IT solutions for it,” he said.
“I am happy to inform that two departments, namely, R&B and PHE, Irrigation & Flood Control will move to PAO system by mid-February and will not operate upon treasuries anymore,” he said and added that “this phased rollout will help us in identifying deficiencies and technological glitches if any. The full system will be rolled out thereafter in all other departments by April 2018.”
This he said will help in reducing the transactional touch points of Government with the people which will not only reduce the cost of delivery and make it more efficient, it will also eliminate corruption.
“Sixty years of diverse experience tell us that you cannot stop corruption; you have to eliminate the opportunity, the possibility and indeed the scope for corruption. This can only be done by changing the systems,” he said.
