Ban on engagement of daily wagers to continue
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 1: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha approved release of 50% of revenue and capital outlay on first day of financial year today. The timely release of revenue and capital component is expected to accelerate pace of development in the Union Territory. It may be mentioned here that the Parliament recently approved highest ever budget for the Union Territory of the order of Rs 1,08,621 crore consisting of capital outlay of Rs 39817 crore and revenue component of Rs 68804 crore.
While authorizing the revenue and capital outlay, the Government issued strict directions for timely completion of tendering process before end of May to ensure that there are no constraints due to limited working season in J&K.
“The flow of funds to the subordinate offices will be in online mode through BEAMS and all departments shall be required to submit monthly reports regarding the progress made by them under various components. In order to ensure uniform pace of expenditure, it has been clearly stipulated that not more than 30% of the funds can be spent in the last quarter of the financial year and not more than 15% of the funds can be spent during the last month of March,” an official handout said.
This is intended to avoid rush of expenditure towards end of the financial year. The projects undertaken during the year will need to meet basic discipline of administrative approval, technical sanction and e-tendering. Geo-tagged photographs will be necessary before commencement of the work and after completion of the work for incurring expenditure.
The activities will be available for public viewing through EMPOWERMENT web-portal and people’s participation in the development process is one of the key objectives that will be pursued. The flow of funds under individual beneficiary schemes shall be in DBT mode with Adhaar seeding which will ensure that only eligible beneficiaries get the benefit of Government schemes.
In a significant move the Panchayat level plans, Block Development Plans and District Development Plans are expected to be ready in the month of May. This will be for the first time in the history of J&K that Panchayats shall be fully involved in the formulation of plans. Suitable training of district officials shall be undertaken by the Government in this regard to enable them to prepare the plans in a time bound manner in accordance with the felt needs of people. A system of complete physical verification is being institutionalized including third party verification for high value projects.
Meanwhile, the Government has authorized 50 percent of funds under Revenue budget except in 12 cases where funds will be released on case to case bases including LTC, purchase of vehicles, furniture, works, interest, power purchase, cost price of food grains, refund, snow clearance, suspense debit, UT share under Revenue component and Disaster Response Fund.
An order to this effect was issued today by Financial Commissioner (Finance) Dr Arun Kumar Mehta.
He directed the Controlling Officers to immediately release funds to the line departments within a period of one week from the date of authorization of funds by the Finance Department. The Budget Estimation Allocation and Monitoring System (BEAMS) Administrator at Administrative Department level will report compliance to the Finance Department on monthly basis.
The Finance Department has directed that process of e-tendering, wherever required as per GFR, will be initiated immediately in April itself and completed by or before May 31 for the current financial year. No diversion will be made under any pretext unless expressly authorized by the Finance Department.
“All the Director Finances, FA&CAOs will ensure submission of monthly revenue statements and they will also monitor the expenditure statements on BEAMS and furnish the same before fifth of following month for monthly review by the Finance Department. All Government transactions will be made through electronic mode without involving any cash transactions in the Government or other offices which are directly or indirectly controlled by the Government excepting for few small denominations,” the Finance Department order said.
The Finance Department has directed the Treasury Officers concerned to ensure that releases are made by the Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs) through BEAMS. They will also be personally liable for making any payment not authorized and accepted on BEAMS application. The Departments have also been asked to ensure that expenditure out of allotted funds are made in stipulated timeframe within the quarter(s) for which the funds have been released.
“Ban on engagement of casual and need based workers and daily wagers will remain in force,” the order said.
It added that advance drawl of funds in respect of grant-in-aid to autonomous bodies/PSUs/Boards etc will be simultaneously processed with the fund release proposals by the Department containing details of available bank balances, status of holding Board of Directors meeting, status of updation of annual accounts and previous Utilization Certificates.
“All Departments will ensure uniform pace of expenditure during financial year 2021-22. Overall ceiling of 30 percent expenditure will be maintained during last quarter of the financial year. Expenditure during last month will be restricted to 15 percent of the budget allocation.
“Funds provided under all beneficiary schemes will be disbursed through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode with 100 percent Aadhar Seeding which shall be reviewed by each Administrative Secretary on monthly basis and beneficiary-wise report furnished to the Finance Department on regular basis for uploading on the DBT portal,” the Finance Department order read.
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