Formats

2.5 Current System of Accounting : Traditional System of
managing PRI Accounts
Under the present traditional Accounting System for Panchayati Raj
Institutions, though there were accounting rules for all the 3 tire
Panchayati Raj Institutions, but there was no standardised procedure for
maintaining & analysing the accounts and auditing the same.
Moreover, only handwritten manual registers were being
maintained at all the levels of Panchayati Raj Institutions for
maintenance of their daily financial transactions.
The manual Cash Books which were maintained at various levels
were subject to manipulation at a later stage. It could be inferred that
there was lack of transparency in maintaining the accounts in the
traditional system. As it was not possible to physical audit each account
of Gram Panchayat due to shortage of man power, the chance of
manipulation of accounts at the Gram Panchayat level was even more.
These shortcomings in the traditional accounting system gave the
impetus to use Information Technology as a tool to maintain the
accounts of the PRIs in a transparent manner. The main objective of
maintaining the accounts using Information Technology to keep each
transaction of the Panchayati Raj Institutions in public domain and also
to facilitate the post-auditing in a simplified manner.
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