FD draws red lines for officials, says violation will invite costs

Expdt monitoring to be done through BEAMS
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Feb 20: After announcing series of financial and expenditure reforms, the Finance Ministry today came out with detailed guidelines for Administrative Secretaries and the Departments with a note of caution for those at the helm of affairs that if they breach the red lines set up for them, even if they were intended, unintended or circumstantial, they will invite costs.
While Legislative part of fiscal and expenditure reforms was part of Appropriation bill, passed by the Legislature, the operational part of the reforms, in a detailed set of guidelines was issued today by the Finance Ministry, headed by Dr Haseeb Drabu.
Released by Principal Secretary, Finance Department, Navin K Choudhary, the order said the objective of these measures is to enforce accepted standards of fiscal propriety. The passage of these measures in the State Legislature as a part of the Appropriation Act is to ensure that conformity to these measures is treated by the Departments as a foregone conclusion. These measures, the order said, essentially, aim at drawing clear and visible red lines for the departments.
“All the Administrative Secretaries are advised to immediately put in place appropriate and robust mechanism of checks and balances in their departments so that sustained compliance with the measures, listed today, is not only ensured, but also facilitated. There is no better way for the departments to do this than by internalizing and institutionalizing the virtues of restrain, discipline and propriety in their operational systems and, accordingly re-engineer their policy and operational paradigms. Any violation of the protocols at any level in the system, shall have consequences.
“Further, there is an element of personal liability, both for Treasury Officers and PAOs, built in the above reform protocols, if they breach the red lines set up for them. They may, as such, note that any violation, even unintended, will have costs, particularly, as no allowance has been made for any breach in these protocols, be it intended, unintended or circumstantial,’’ the Government order said, adding the compliance with the protocols/measures shall be monitored by the Budget division of the Finance Department.
The guidelines, a copy of which is available with the Excelsior, made it a binding on the Treasury Officer/PAO that they will not make any payments from April 1, 2018, under any expenditure heads if releases for them haven’t been made and further received by the spending and bill passing officers via BEAMS (Budgetary Estimation, Allocations and Monitoring System).
The new guidelines have made Treasury Officers/PAOs personally liable for making payments on the funds released and received bypassing the BEAMS application.
“Procurement plans of the departments in the next fiscal (2018-19), will be limited by an outermost cap of 60 days. From conceiving the nature and quantity of public goods and services to be procured to preparing tenders/Expression of Interests/RFQs to finally awarding the contract, the departments will compulsorily finish the entire process within 60 days,’’ the guidelines stated and added that any spillover in timeline shall be allowed only under the orders of the Cabinet based on some cogent reasons. In all other cases, deviation from the norms shall be automatically visited with the appropriate disciplinary actions.
Reiterating that expenditure during the last quarter will be restricted to not more than 30 per cent of the Revised Estimates, the Government order said the Treasury Officers/PAOs shall have an added responsibility to ensure that the departments are held to the above expenditure ceiling.
The Departments have been barred from new procurements under ‘Machinery and Equipment’ head without building a robust inventory management system so as to have proper justification for procurement of new machinery. For this purpose, all Departments will make an ‘Asset Inventory’ and further procurements can be made only with the approval of competent authority will full justification given therein.
A significant guideline pertained to transportation for the purpose of ‘Darbar Move’, which takes place twice a year in view of the State having two rotational capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar, carrying food grains for public distribution and for any major requirement of transport facility. For the purpose, the Departments have been asked to enter into a contract for at least two years with reputed transport/logistic company through transparent bidding system.
The Finance Department has introduced new head “Wages (Outsourcing)’ under which funds for disbursement of all kinds of casual labourers shall be released by the Finance Department on case to case basis. No wages shall be paid out of any other head from next fiscal 2018-19. The Treasury Officers/PAOs will ensure that no wages are drawn from maintenance/outsourcing or any other head except under the newly created head.
The Finance Department said the funds under object head “Maintenance and Repairs” shall be spent only after detailed expenditure and action plan distributed into different components is approved by the competent authority with the concurrence of Director Finance IFA & CAO of the Department.
Similarly, it said, the funds under the object head “Uniforms” shall be released to the Departments on case to case basis after backed duly by the supply order and invoice.
It added that funds under “Stipend and Scholarship” shall be operationalized subject to the condition that each beneficiary is verified through biometric Aadhaar based system. The database shall mandatorily be compiled latest by May 31, 2018 and in the absence of the same, no payment shall be made beyond June 2018.
“Procurement by debit to object head “Instruments” above Rs 50 lakh shall have inbuilt clause in tenders for AMC for a minimum period of 5 years. Any procurement under the head “Office Equipment and Machinery Appliances” will be made only after any inventory of such procurement made during last 10 years, their usage and conditions, requirement of further procurement as clearly brought out and approved by the Competent Authority, the Government guidelines stated.
They said the Director Finance IFA & CAO in the Administrative Departments shall build inventory of existing civil deposits. All the civil deposits shall be recalled except in such cases where it is assured by the departments that they will use them in the next two months of making such deposits.
Orders for deputation of officers/officials on short term trainings/seminars/higher education refresher courses/ conferences etc outside the State shall be issued only after obtaining prior approval of the Finance Department.
“With each bill, Treasury Officer/PAO shall ensure that the concerned DDO of the intending Department appends certificate indicating therein that no new engagement has been made or any sort of wages paid or intended to be paid to new engagements under any circumstances,’’ the order said.
It added that at the policy level, the reforms include that Revenue and Capital budgets shall be released by the Finance Department and the Planning, Development and Monitoring Department to all the Administrative Departments within two weeks of the passage of the Appropriation Act.
The Administrative Departments shall, in turn, release the funds so received to the subordinate offices within four weeks of their receipt, falling which these funds shall be deemed to have been transferred to the intended DDOs on the dates they ought to have been released by the Administrative Departments/Controlling Officers.
Planning, Development and Monitoring Department shall appropriately classify all capital allocations to be made in the next fiscal, indicating therein the ‘Name of the Work/Scheme against Detailed Head ‘115-Works’ as laid out in the authorized allocations. In the absence of the above schematic classification, the relevant Capex release shall be deemed as invalid and not open to being operationalized, the order said.
“The Planning, Development and Monitoring Department shall mandatorily upload department-wise ‘Name of the Schemes/Works/Projects’, forming part of the Capex, for the fiscal 2018-19, or, as per the format notified from time to time, along with the respective allocations on its website. Only such works shall be authorized for execution, as have prior administrative approval, technical sanction and appropriate financial back up.’’
Expenditure monitoring across all departments shall be done on real time basis through BEAMSIPFMS. Funds shall be spent only on the approved items of the expenditure and strictly for the purpose they have been released. There shall be no re-appropriation of funds except where the departments have spent at least 55 per cent of funds received ending December, 2017. However, where their spending levels are below 55 per cent, the remaining unspent balance of 70% of funds shall lapse to the Government.
The State Share of the Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs) and the expenditure to be incurred on utility shifting, land compensation etc. under PMDP projects shall be the first charge on the funds lapsing to the Government during the last quarter, the Government said.

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