Run up to the annual state budget was less taxing for principal secretary SK Nanda. Babus from other departments did not hurry to tag respective files to be sent to the seniors and the peons were spared of the sprints across state secretariat corridors.
Instead, the regular participants in Gujarat’s budget-making exercise just clicked to enable country’s first online system that would help administration better utilise the funds.
Integrated Financial Management System, an online tool, has not only changed the way the budget is being prepared has also facilitated real time monitoring of expenditure incurred after the budget is passed by the state assembly. Importantly, the manpower of officials has been reduced by 60%, said an official in the state’s finance ministry.
While many states have adopted systems similar to IFMS, what makes Gujarat different from its peers is the real time tracking of the expenses.
"The movement of files is synchronised now. It saves a lot of time and energy and we can focus more on nuances of budget making rather than running from one department to other. Now there is no piling of files," says Nanda who takes care of the environment and forest department.
The budget-making process in the state begins in October and continues till the middle of February, when last minute changes are made.
Earlier, the final copy of the budget would be sent for printing two weeks before its presentation in the assembly. Now, IFMS has ensured, the time gap drops to two days, giving more time to the officials for fine tuning the budget.
"More than 6,000 files from all departments were sent to the finance department. Handling all these files was a cumbersome job. Now all the files are sent through intranet," said Atanu Chakravarty, principal secretary in the department of finance.
While all 27 departments receive budget proposals from all the districts through IFMS, the consolidated departmental budget is also being presented to the finance department through the system. Queries of the finance department are also addressed online, making the process faster and efficient.
"Earlier departments had to reprint the entire budget proposals when finance department came up with queries. Online correction has eliminated the use of paper by 75% and made the process faster. There were even cases of missing files. Now as the files are sent and received through the system, everything is streamlined," said Nityanand Shrivastav, secretary in the department of public enterprises.
The feat has been achieved by integrating all the 25 district treasury and 184 sub-treasury offices with IFMS. "Once the funds are released from the treasury or sub-treasury office, an entry is made on IFMS. The higher-ups in the concerned department and finance department are able to monitor the expense on real time basis," said Pankaj Gupta, head of state government projects at Tata Consultancy Services , which has prepared IFMS.
The excel sheet accessed by the higher-ups within the department contains the data of grant approved by the state government, central government and RBI (in some cases), grant released, grant utilised and grant pending at various level of hierarchies. Expenditure undertaken right at the village level can be tracked on real time basis from the secretariat in Gandhinagar. "The real time data bank becomes very handy during the quarterly review meetings, cabinet meetings or even when the CM demands information at a short notice. We can also ensure productive utilisation of grants. Earlier, we did not have the clue of status of grants, resulting in delays in decision making. This will also minimise the proportion of grants getting lapsed," Shrivastav said. While secretaries in the finance department can monitor utilisation of grants of any department right up to the village level, departmental secretaries have access to details pertaining to their departments only.
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