Treasuries paying beneficiaries faster now, thanks to IFMS
Kolkata: With introduction of Integrated Finance Management System (IFMS) and bringing several other reforms, the average time taken by treasuries in making payments to beneficiaries has reduced to 1.37 days at the beginning of 2018-19 fiscal.
The matter was discussed in details in the recently held second quarterly review meeting with the Pay and Accounts Officers and Treasury Officers of Bengal.
Amit Mitra, the state Finance minister, H K Dwivedi, additional chief secretary of the Finance department and Parwez Siddiqui, director of treasuries and accounts, were present in the meeting.
Around 300 officers, including Pay and Accounts Officers, Treasury Officers and officials of the Finance department also attended the meeting.
The average time taken by treasuries to process and make payment to benefits was 3.36 days in 2016-17. It used to be much higher earlier. In 2016-17, it came down to 3.36 days after the Mamata Banerjee government brought in reforms in the system of making payments. With fine tuning and better utilisation of the system, it had further dropped to 2.28 days in 2017-18. So far in 2018-19, the average time taken has been reduced to 1.37 days.
It may be mentioned that besides introducing IFMS, the state Finance department has also brought in Human Resource Management System (HRMS), Government Receipt Portal System (GRIPS), e-Pension, Inter-Treasury transfer of fund facility and Online GPF management of Group D employees.
The set of mechanisms has helped Pay and Accounts and Treasury officers to reduce the time needed to process bills. The processing of bills in treasuries is needed to ensure that benefits reach the beneficiaries in the grassroot level, as fast as possible. The fast clearance of bills and finally the payment from treasury has ensured timely completion of development projects taken up by the Mamata Banerjee government, to bring around an overall development of the state. At the same time, social welfare schemes are also implemented in a timely manner.
Moreover, the average time taken to pay the gratuity from the date of first appearance of the pensioners in the treasury was 6 days and it was 23 days in case of pension in 2017. In 2018, it has reduced to only four days for payment of both gratuity and pension.
In the meeting, treasury officers were urged to inform operators of deposit accounts if the balance is not verified with the treasury records for three consecutive months. The operators will not be allowed to draw money from the deposit account until it is verified.
