Introduction

Integrated Treasuries Computerization Project (ITCP) is a major E-Governance initiative by Government of Madhya Pradesh. While its coverage extends to entire state (229 locations), through 53 district treasuries, 159 sub-treasuries etc, serving almost 8000 drawing and disbursing officers belonging to all departments of the State Government, the facility provided under it has proved to be extremely useful in improving the financial management of the State. The system of Budget Control through mandatory transmission of budget allotments through DTA server has resulted in complete stoppage of irregular allotments/re-appropriations/drawl from the treasuries. Up-to-date information of detailed head wise and department wise revenue and expenditure is now available on-line and department's can take remedial measures in time. For all bills submitted to treasuries, the system not only provides for their tracking, but their status is also available on web for DDO's , thereby bringing transparency to the entire system. Since over 50% of the state budget is spent on salary and pension, ITCP has incorporated special provisions for them. It is now possible to prepare salary bills of 5.05lakhs employees and payment statements of 2.5lakhs pensioners through treasuries itself as detailed databases of all employees and pensioners have been provided in the system. This will apart from taking care of over payments in salary and pension, provide relief to employees/pensioners also. State employees General Provident Fund, which had missing credits exceeding Rs.2000crores a few years back, will also become clean now, saving crores for the State. A web-site, which is a public interface of department, is operational with dynamic updated information. Cyber Treasury is a facility on web-site for submission of receipts to Government from any corner of the world. Bill status, challan search, pension search etc. facilities are useful for getting updated information without meeting the officials at treasuries.

The project could succeed because it had a good team of trained personnel and everybody worked with great motivation. Besides, we did not just computerized the existing system, but studied the process prevalent in other states, benchmarked them and re-engineered the processes, before their computerization, that is why the project is not only comprehensive but also cost effective, as its payback period may be less than a year.

Directorate of Treasuries and Accounts

The Directorate of Treasuries and Accounts administers the functioning of Treasuries, including Sub-Treasuries, Joint Director Offices and Accounts Training Schools.
Some of its main functions are:

• Monitoring of Treasury operations
  
• Monitoring of Pension cases disposed off at the Treasury and the Office of Divisional Joint Director
  
• Treasury, Accounts & Pension, Bhopal
  
• Internal audit, store and cash verification of other government departments
  
• Monitoring of CAG & AG audit
  
• Conducting special audit as per the order of Finance Department
  
• Monitoring of monthly accounts sent by Treasuries to AGMP
  
• Issuing instructions to Treasuries and Sub-Treasuries to execute bans on payment as per the order of Finance Department
  
• Giving opinion on various financial matters referred by other Departments
  
• Reconciliation of departmental expenditure at AG level
  
• Conducting Treasury inspections Cadre management of MP Finance Service, MP Subordinate Accounts services and    Treasury clerical services personnel
  
• Deputing officials in various government departments so as to ensure proper financial and budgetary control
  
• Monitoring of court cases and such ancillary activities

Cyber Treasury

Introduction

Government of Madhya Pradesh brings to its registered payees the facility to make online payment to the state, through the internet, using net banking facility. This paves the way towards making "any one, any where, anytime", Tax/Fee Payments possible. The provision has been made for the "Commercial Tax Department" for all of its 78 circle offices. This will soon be extended to other Government Department like Transport and Others .

The Process

A user seeking to make payment of State Taxes/Fee through "Cyber Treasury" is required to fill up e-form, provided herein. After submission of the same, he is directed to a payment gateway of the selected bank for the purpose of making e-payment. After verifying his credentials, the transaction is processed at the payment gateway of Bank . The user then gets an acknowledgement bearing the unique Challan Identification Number (CIN) . The details of transaction are forwarded by the bank through secured mail to the concerning departmental authorities, as well as to the treasury for the incorporation into government accounts. The MIS from the bank to the Tax collecting department will be segregated tax collection authority wise and will be sent to the relevant authorities for further action.
Advantage of ITCP:

• Daily updated status of detailed head wise expenditure and object head wise receipt for effective monitoring & decision making.
• Effective monitoring of loans, equities investments, sovereign guarantees etc at the level of F.D., no possibility of inadvertently converting a loan into grant-in-aid. Specific evaluation of loans and guarantees proposals and payment liabilities of State Government can be correctly worked out.
• Provision for on-line stopping and revoking of payments at treasuries.
• Effective budgetary monitoring, management and control (allocation, re-allocation, surrender etc.). Database maintenance of Employees (5.5 lakhs); posts database; pensioners database (2.5 lakhs). Each of the employees has its own Unique Employee code, which can be tracked throughout the service tenure. These databases will help in eliminating the fraudulent drawls and help in tracking the drawls in salary & pension, which is approximately40% of the Government expenditure.
• On-line checking of all of the bills (in built facility of referring to directives and rules) resulted in eliminating irregular payments or overdrawls.
• The bill passing, cheque generation & account preparation is on-line with reduced level of hierarchy; bill status is kept on web-site also.
• Maintenance of DDO wise pay-record database. Facility of generating salary from treasuries on the basis monthly updated pay record database to stop fictitious payments and over drawls.
• Facility for better monitoring and decision making for expenditure control, analysis of revenue receipts, on-going project & schemes etc to District Administrative set-up (Collectors etc.) Recently, the Prime Minister of India has taken the meeting of District Collectors to exercise their control on expenditures.
• Reconciliation of monthly receipt and expenditure figures with the DDO’s for verification against misclassification, over drawls, fictitious drawls/receipt. This exercise aims in narrowing down the difference between AGMP & Treasury’s accounts.
• Maintenance of GPF/DPF & personal loans/advances, to check fraudulent drawls in this category.
• Database of Pensioners at district level in order to avoid fraudulent/irregular drawls from the banks.
• Fully automated first pension payment, P.P.O/C.P.O/G.P.O generation.
• On-line stock maintenance of stamps, inventory management other valuables.

STATE FINANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The Comprehensive State Finance Management Software comprises of four sub systems that cater to the requirements of the State Finances, namely Financial Management Information System (in the Finance Department), Directorate of Treasuries & Accounts sub-system, Joint Director sub-system and Treasury sub-system.

At FMIS Level: (Finance Department)

• Daily updated status of detailed head wise expenditure and object head wise receipt for effective monitoring & decision making.
• Effective monitoring of loans, equities investments, sovereign guarantees etc at the level of F.D., no possibility of inadvertently converting a loan into grant-in-aid. Specific evaluation of loans and guarantees proposals and payment liabilities of State Government can be correctly worked out.
• Provision for on-line stopping and revoking of payments at treasuries.
• Functionality for imposing percentage cut on allotted budget.
• Effective expenditure and revenue receipt planning.
• Consolidation of monthly treasury accounts at F.D level and its comparison with AGMP accounts.

At DTA Level: (Directorate of Treasuries & Accounts)

• Daily updated statewide information on expenditures and revenue.
• Effective budgetary monitoring, management and control (allocation, re-allocation, surrender etc.).
• Database maintenance of Employees (5.5 lakhs); posts database; pensioners database (2.5 lakhs). Each of the employees has its own Unique Employee code, which can be tracked throughout the service tenure. These databases will help in eliminating the fraudulent drawls and help in tracking the drawls in salary & pension, which is approximately40% of the Government expenditure.
• Monitoring of treasury operations.
• Miscellaneous functionality's like cadre control, monitoring of court cases internal audit, training etc.

At Treasuries/Sub-Treasuries Level:

• On-line checking of all of the bills (in built facility of referring to directives and rules) resulted in eliminating irregular payments or overdrawls.
• The bill passing, cheque generation & account preparation is on-line with reduced level of hierarchy; bill status is kept on web-site also.
• Provision of Unique receipt number for every bill for further tracking and logging of audit trails of transactions, users-wise, for future references and accountability.
• To stop the manipulations in the revenue receipts, facility of treasury-bank interface and challan search on the web site.
• Maintenance of DDO wise pay-record database. Facility of generating salary from treasuries on the basis monthly updated pay record database to stop fictitious payments and over drawls.
• Facility for better monitoring and decision making for expenditure control, analysis of revenue receipts, on-going project & schemes etc to District Administrative set-up (Collectors etc.) Recently, the Prime Minister of India has taken the meeting of District Collectors to exercise their control on expenditures.
• Reconciliation of monthly receipt and expenditure figures with the DDO’s for verification against misclassification, over drawls, fictitious drawls/receipt. This exercise aims in narrowing down the difference between AGMP & Treasury’s accounts.
• Maintenance of GPF/DPF & personal loans/advances, to check fraudulent drawls in this category.
• Database of Pensioners at district level in order to avoid fraudulent/irregular drawls from the banks.
• Fully automated first pension payment, P.P.O/C.P.O/G.P.O generation.
• On-line stock maintenance of stamps, inventory management other valuables.
• Speedy Pay-fixation of Government officials/ employees.
• On-line P.P.O/C.P.O/G.P.O generation.

The Integrate Treasury Computerisation project was inaugurated by The Chief Minister on 23rd May 2005.

At Division level (Joint Directorate):

In the SFMS now the E-LOC system is incorporated to fix the responsibilities of the work departments in their construction works, for balancing physical and financial progress and to control their expenditure.

E-LOC System

Special Features

• To ensure the availability of the required resources for the development programs of the State.
• To ensure the availability of the work plan for scheme wise expenditure from the starting of the financial year.
• To allot a unique ID for amount greater than 25 Lakhs for each construction work plan.
• To provide information of administrative cost, available allotment and updated expenditure against each construction works performed by the works department.
• Total control over expenditure against available allotment.
• To fix responsibilities over the executing agency on administrative level.
• Verification of the LOC proposals through system.
• Issuing of LOC to concerned Treasuries through the system.
• To develop a solid system for sending monthly accounts of the works department to the Accountant General.
• Also incorporated for the amount released by the Collectors for the development works in their districts.
• The entry of the available amount for deposit works will be made as per the information to be sent to Accountant General and that will be verified from challan deposited in the Treasuries.
• The increase in the scheme cost will be controlled, as the work will be completed within the time limit.

 

Benefits

Improvement in speed of delivery: There has been remarkable improvement in speed of delivery. At Treasury level, where previously average days taken to pass bills was 5 days, now bills are processed and cheques issued within 2 days. Similarly pension calculation and pension payment has been expedited. Similarly, pension and pay fixation cases have been speeded up at divisional offices. Effective MIS has resulted in quick and speedy reports for effective decision-making.
Quality of service- All processes in the system are automated with global masters controlled from Directorate and system validations, which are universal at all, site. This ensures uniformity of practices. Bill status and pension status can be checked at Treasury and Directorate level. Since roles are defined and user names/passwords used for each activity, transparency and accountability is ensured.
Single window access to multiple services: At Treasury levels all bills are received at front office , where after preliminary scrutiny a token number is given to the messenger and his bill accepted. Against this claim either a cheque is delivered or bill returned with objection. Similarly, other activities like pension payment, deposit account maintenance, stamp delivery and inventory control are other activities undertaken.
Usage of local language: The software used is Bi-lingual, Jawa Bean based. Hindi/English has been used to develop the software. The screens used by the users are in Hindi, so as to facilitate the user. The application software is in Hindi language, which makes the software user friendly and easy to access the usability and functionalities of the system. The treasury transaction period has become very speedy all the bills are processed same day or within two days. The Quality of service is very high as all the system is computerized the reports generated are made available on the web site all efforts has been made to make the system transparent by keeping the details on the web and issued reports to the drawing and disbursing officers. Automatic pension payments and pay fixations have resulted in accurate and speedy disposal.

 

A brief about the department's Website:

A Web-site www.mptreasury.org is functional to provide interface to the stakeholders and facility to Deptt’s./ BCO’s/ D.D.O’s/ Employee/ Pensioner’s etc. This is an attempt towards the goal of transparent Government functioning. As it deals with the financial data, role based user privileges have been allotted. The web site was inaugurated by the Finance Minister on 27/09/2004.The following major information /web based operations are kept on web-

• Facility of submission of receipt to the Government through CYBER TREASURY.
• Facility of financial sanctions from Government through web.
• Report on Dept./BCO/DDO/Treasury wise major head wise plan/non-plan expenditure, BCO wise budget status and balance budget availability,  & major head wise revenue receipt.
• Treasury wise consolidated receipt and expenditure.
• List of employees retiring within 02 years
• Pension search-first pension payment report &weekly report on finalization of pension cases.
• BCO wise Salary reports.
• Stock register of important stock items in various departments.
• Link to RBI, SBI, NIC, M.P. Pension, CAG & State audit reports.
• Important Rules/formats/circulars/events/training etc.
• Internal audit reports of various department.

Impact of the project (Results Achieved)

• During 2004-05,no overdraft position had arisen (for the first time in the past 16 years).
• DDO wise/Treasury wise budget of financial year 2005-06 transmitted to respective treasuries from central server on 02 April 2005 itself.
• Credibility of State Government has risen. Recently the Govt. has issued the bonds for market borrowings, the     response was overwhelming.
• During last financial year, not a single ban was imposed on treasury payments due to strict budgetary monitoring and control

Strengths:

• First of its own kind in India.
• Comprehensive in nature. All units of fiscal administration have been computerized and networked.
• Advance utilities like cyber treasury (online submission of the Government receipts), on-line passing of bills etc.
• Transparent Government functioning.
• Accountability along-with adherence to the time limits.