Among many of the reforms taken by J&K administration, the business of government treasuries has also been made simple and less hectic.
This has been made possible with the help of severalIT-based tools and programmes. The paperwork in the treasuries of Jammu andKashmir has now been reduced to a greater extent. Instead, the bills aregenerated and submitted for payment using the help of InformationTechnology-based platforms.
The IT tool that has been introduced by J&K FinanceDepartment to ease the business and make the transactions smooth andhassle-free is—JKPaySys– an electronic payment system for disbursinggovernment payments. JK Payment System (PayManager) provides the common andintegrated platform for DDOs to prepare all types of bills for booking ofexpenditure.
The software not only provides the facilities for pay billpreparation but also preparation of Arrears, Bonus, and Leave encashment bills.It has been initially introduced in nine treasuries including the one in civilsecretariat involving around 1300 Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs),transacting their daily business through it.
The system is highly efficient in a way that it lessens thechances of creeping of error into the bill making as it by default conducts thepre-audit of claims raised through it. Besides the budget is also controlledthrough this system that makes keeping track of the same a single click awayfrom both the DDOs and Pay &Accounts Officers (PAOs). All this has made thedisbursement of payments by the treasuries simple and swift. Now no billremains un-disbursed in the treasuries for more than a single working day, ifit is genuine and meets other codal formalities, as claimed by the officials.
The system has enhanced transparency, accountability andaccuracy in government transactions. The system is integrated with otherapplications of the Finance Department like Centralised Personnel Informationsystem (CPIS), Budget Estimation, Allocation and Monitoring System (BEAMS),TreasuryNet under the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS). Thishappens to be the reliant database from which the relevant data is mined foruploading on this platform and is therefore error-free.
The system is more important and beneficial for employeesworking on government establishment. The salary bills of government employeesare prepared on this system, submitted online and the bills are processed anddisbursed directly into the beneficiaries’ accounts by treasury officers on areal-time basis. Moreover, it enables preparation and modification of billswithout manual interventions. Even the reports of pay bill, GPF, NPS, Incometax, Increments, salary slips, last pay certificates, acquaintance role, SLIand other insurances are viewed online.
Another IT-based tool that is coming up as a viable corebanking solution on real-time fund management is RBI devised ‘E-Kuber’. It is astandardised e-payment model that enables a completely automated process offund flow yet ensures proper accounting, reconciliation, reporting andreal-time credit to the beneficiaries. It happens to be the single point ofrelease of payments, acceptance of confirmation hence real-time fund management.
The locally developed application TreasuryNet is integratedwith e-Kuber and has already been tested successfully. The transition wouldenable flexibility to operate a single account for entire payment withdecentralised access to account from anywhere, anytime using portal-basedservice in a very secure manner. The safety features in this mechanism arehighly advanced thereby ensuring secure and safe payments with greater timeefficiency.
These measures are proving revolutionary in making the overallbusiness of treasuries smooth and efficient. Moreover, the additional steps inthe pipeline would make it easier and people-friendly, meeting the true visionof good governance in the times to come.