Issue for October - December 2011 - National Institute of Rural ...

400 M.N.Royidentification and easier compilation so thatsector-specific progress of expenditure canalso be worked out easily. Those wereaggregated in 13 major receipt & paymentheads such as Own fund; Non-plan grant fromPRDD, Non-plan grant from other than PRDD,Plan grant from PRDD, Plan grant from otherthan PRDD, GoI Scheme fund, Loans &Advances, Deductions & Recoveries fromemployees etc.Use of the software made it easier fortracking and planning expenditure as well asknowing details of collection of own sourcerevenue. The new system was a markedimprovement over the earlier practice wheneven fund allotted for one purpose was foundto have been used for other purpose becauseof poor documentation and managementpractices. It was possible to get exact amountof unspent balances bill-wise and sector-wiseagainst various types of funds received by thePS or the ZP after the computerisation.Monitoring of own revenue collection andmaking various analysis for improvingcollection was another important outcome.The clarity and correctness of financial data,because of adopting double entry system ofaccounts, also helped tremendously inmonitoring and accounting of the entire fundmanagement of those bodies. The softwarewas designed to provide a communicationmodule through which the incremental datafor each day may be transmitted to the serverof the PRDD through web-enabled file transferprotocol. This feature was added by the endof the year 2008 and that helped sharing thefinancial status of the ZP and the PS throughthe website of the department in a prescribedform (known as Form 27). Since the report issystem generated, there is little scope tomanipulate the figures (in conventional modethe report is typed separately leading to evenunwanted mistakes). This makes it possible toaccess the latest financial progress in respectof every PS and ZP by any one who has thepassword. Later on the same was madeavailable for public view and any one can seethe latest financial status of any ZP or PS bylogging in to wbprd.nic.in, the website of thePRDD, and the data may be seen by enteringthe icon G-to-G at the top of the website.Availability of the financial records of PS andZP electronically has become very helpful intracking the progress of income andexpenditure of those bodies. Thus, it is possibleto dispense with separate submission ofutilisation reports, which is a nagging problemrelated to providing fund to the local bodies.Also, progress of expenditure of all importantprogrammes, fund lying unspent on each itemare known easily along with intra and interdistrictcomparison with the click of a mouse.Such information is a strong tool with thePanchayat executives as well as the State levelofficials, who can easily analyse the financialperformances and take measures forimproving efficiency of utilisation of fund. Infact, the PRDD has ordered that the monthlyfinancial analysis in Form 27 is to be placed inthe meeting of the Standing Committee ofFinance in both PS and the ZP and copies areto be given to all members of the Committeeincluding the member from the oppositionside. This has improved both transparency andmonitoring including timely writing of cashbook, which was a problem before introductionof this system. Previously the financialperformance of any PS or ZP could be knownonly from their physical reports, which weregenerally programme-specific requiringcompiling all those reports to know thecomplete financial status of any local body orby actually visiting those bodies and checkingthe cash book. The computerisation hashelped to get the picture from anywhere andthe fact that others are in a position to knowthe details easily has led to markedimprovement of financial discipline in the PSand the ZP.Journal of Rural Development, Vol. 30, No. 4, October - December : 2011