Srinagar: Two days after sacking Dr Haseeb Drabu as finance minister, Jammu and Kashmir government on Monday put in abeyance Pay and Accounts Office (PAO) System till March 31.
“The implementation of Pay and Accounts Office System rolled out vide government order no.43-F of 2018 is kept in abeyance till 31st March 2018 in the first phase,” reads an order issued by Princiapl Secretary Finance, Navin K Choudhary.
“The readiness of stakeholders as well as foolproof technical plateform will be reviewed before rollout of the system early next financial year,” the order added.
The functionally aligned PAO system was proposed by then Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu to replace the present Treasury System.
“For all receipts and disbursements of the Government, the Pay and Accounts Offices would be departmentally aligned. They would deal with those heads of accounts which are related to the function of their concerned departments.
Instead of receiving the receipts and disbursing the payments of numerous departments in the treasury system, the PAO would deal with just one department. This will ensure better understanding of the department resulting in better forecasting, budgeting, accounting and reporting,” he had said in his budget speech.
The new PAO system, he had said, will be able to monitor and control the purpose and objective of payments, budgetary sanctions and ceilings, proper classification, and excess payment issues.
For budget control mechanism of audit and invoice checking at the department level, the bills and challans and invoices would not be physically carried to treasuries. “Instead, a computerized Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) will process all those functions online.
The new system will be in vogue from October 1, 2017 and complete the transition by March 31, 2018,” he had said.
