Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 20: The State Government has acted upon one of the major recommendations made by the State Vigilance Commission (SVC), Jammu and Kashmir suggesting disbanding of all 130 treasuries in the State, New Delhi and Mumbai, most of which, it said, had become a source of corruption, and suggested alternate mechanism, which could be in place just by developing software in two to three months.
State Vigilance Commissioner, Kuldeep Khoda has suggested that all treasuries, numbering over 130 in Jammu and Kashmir, should be disbanded to save lot of Government buildings, staff and, above all, the massive complaints that the Government employees, contractors and others were harassed and forced to pay commission for release of their bills.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the Finance Department of the Government has designated IAS officer M Raju as Secretary Revenue in the Finance Department to study abolition of treasuries and implementation of Pay and Accounts Mechanism in close coordination with Director General (Accounts and Treasuries.
Raju will also go into all issues pertaining to Funds Organization and specifically new mechanism to streamline GPF and its automation.
Sources said the SVC had suggested that the Government should disband all treasuries in Jammu and Kashmir, whose number was more than 100 in the State as a part of its drive against corruption as the SVC and Vigilance Organisation frequently received reports of corruption in the treasuries for releasing payments of contractors and the Government staff.
As an alternate mechanism, the SVC had proposed that the Government could develop software within couple of months and authorize Head of Departments and Drawing and Disbursing Officers, who know the budgetary allocation, to directly transfer the money into the accounts of contractors, Government employees and other staff, who had to draw bills from the treasuries pertaining to their payments.
“Not only the contractors but even the Government employees, who had to take their GPF, retirement funds etc would be saved of any give and take by switching over to new mechanism,” the SVC has suggested.
There are two Sadder Treasuries, 6 Additional Treasuries, 20 District Level Treasuries, 99 Muffasil /Sub Treasuries and 3 Treasuries one each at Civil Secretariat J&K, New Delhi and Mumbai, the SVC has pointed out.
The alternate mechanism would save over 100 Government buildings, which can be used to run Government schools and other offices as the treasuries would be disbanded, the SVC said and suggested that the shortage of staff in the Finance and related Departments can be met by the staff saved with disbanding of the treasuries.
The alternate mechanism can be in place in just two to three months by developing new software that would empower HoDs and DDOs to directly transfer the payment into accounts of contractors and Government staff.
“The idea is to avoid visits of contractors and Government staff to treasuries and other departments for their payments, which lead to corruption,” the SVC said.
The SVC has suggested that the DDOs need to project their demands through the software to Finance Department for further management of cash within budgetary allocation of the Department. Under the system, Finance/ Administrative Department have to allocate budget to the DDOs on regular basis, under various expenditure heads, on line.
The recommendations will essentially eliminate the role of treasuries in clearing payments and entire process of payments will be on line directly from the concerned Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs) of the department and the beneficiary. The huge staff, presently working in various Treasuries/Sub Treasuries across the State thus rendered surplus can be effectively utilized to supplement departments at present deficient in trained accounts staff.
The Commission is of the view that implementation of the recommendations will help Government in checking alleged illegal gratification taking place during financial transactions being made in the treasuries.
The proposed arrangement can be introduced on trial basis in any two Ministries for a period of three months and could be extended later on to other Ministries/departments in a phased manner, the SVC recommendations said.
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