Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Jan 17: A major reform in the Government’s payment system, which was announced one year back, has remained confined to the official files as the Finance Department has missed yet another deadline for abolition of existing treasury system and transition to Pay and Accounts Office (PAO) mechanism.
While presenting budget for 2017-18 in January last year, the Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu had proposed abolition of treasury system in Jammu and Kashmir by switching over to new Pay and Accounts Office (PAO) system as far as Government payments are concerned. He had fixed October 1, 2017 as deadline for transition to new system.
However, the Finance Department missed the deadline on the ground that there were number of formalities, which it had to complete before bringing an end to the treasury system that had been going on for the past several years.
On November 29, 2017, it was announced that Government has completed majority of the formalities for adopting Pay and Accounts Office system in place of the treasuries and the same will come into force from January 18, 2018.
“This deadline has again been missed and the same is being attributed to some technicalities”, official sources told EXCELSIOR, adding “now in the official circles new time-frame of February 15, 2018 has been conveyed for the roll out of Pay and Accounts Office system”.
However, in the Economic Survey, which was tabled in the Legislature few days back, no time frame has been mentioned for implementation of PAO system.
“The PAO system is in the final stage of implementation and is likely to be rolled out in near future”, the Government said in the Economic Survey, adding “the system has already been explained to all the stakeholders including Heads of the Departments, contractors and traders, who have assured full cooperation”.
When contacted, Director General Accounts and Treasuries Altaf Hussain Mirza confirmed that some technicalities have created road-block in the roll out of the PAO system from January 18, 2018, which was announced in November last year.
“We are on the job and hopefully we will be able to ensure transition from present treasury system to PAO system from middle of February”, he said in response of a question while claiming that PAO system will be equipped with pre-check system, which will help in monitoring and controlling the purpose and objective of payments, budget sanctions, ceiling and proper classifications.
Due to this, the announcement regarding major reform in the Government’s payment system has remained unimplemented even after the lapse of one year. Even the State Vigilance Commission had long time back recommended to the Government to abolish treasury system in the State as a part of series of anti-corruption measures.
It is pertinent to mention here that PAO system is an alternative to archaic system of treasuries and is aimed at completely changing the way Government pays its bills for contracts and services. The new system will devour the Drawing and Disbursing Authority all including the Deputy Commissioners, who will be assisted by Payment Advisers.
“The treasury is a central point for every Government department where revenue is deposited, payments are made and even salary disbursed. Gradually, most of these activities have shifted to banks making Treasury Officers to pass bills only”, sources said, adding “the overall technological revolution in banking and financial system call for reforms in Government payment system and it was therefore felt that the present treasury system shall be replaced functionally aligned by PAO system for all receipts and disbursements for the Government”.
The PAO system will check if the bill is right, fulfilling all the codal procedures and will make the payment. In the new system, payment will be done by the “unknown face” on the basis of the submissions made by the officer, who is mandated to carry out the work and not the contractor. An officer will receive the bill, check it, convert it into GPF file and upload on the system and the competent authority will check it for all the procedures and credit the liability to the bank account.
The PAO officers would be departmentally aligned and would deal with those heads of accounts which are related to the function of their concerned departments only. This will ensure better understanding of the department resulting in better forecasting, budgeting, accounting and reporting.
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