Among many of the reforms taken by J&K administration, the business of government treasuries has also been made simple and less hectic.This has been made possible with the help of several IT-based tools and programmes. The paperwork in the treasuries of Jammu and Kashmir has now been reduced to a greater extent. Instead, the bills are generated and submitted for payment using the help of Information Technology-based platforms.The IT tool that has been introduced by J&K Finance Department to ease the business and make the transactions smooth and hassle-free is—JKPaySys-- an electronic payment system for disbursing government payments. JK Payment System (PayManager) provides the common and integrated platform for DDOs to prepare all types of bills for booking of expenditure.The software not only provides the facilities for pay bill preparation but also preparation of Arrears, Bonus, and Leave encashment bills. It has been initially introduced in nine treasuries including the one in civil secretariat involving around 1300 Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs), transacting their daily business through it.The system is highly efficient in a way that it lessens the chances of creeping of error into the bill making as it by default conducts the pre-audit of claims raised through it. Besides the budget is also controlled through this system that makes keeping track of the same a single click away from both the DDOs and Pay &Accounts Officers (PAOs). All this has made the disbursement of payments by the treasuries simple and swift. Now no bill remains un-disbursed in the treasuries for more than a single working day, if it is genuine and meets other codal formalities, as claimed by the officials.
The system has enhanced transparency, accountability and accuracy in government transactions. The system is integrated with other applications of the Finance Department like Centralised Personnel Information system (CPIS), Budget Estimation, Allocation and Monitoring System (BEAMS), TreasuryNet under the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS). This happens to be the reliant database from which the relevant data is mined for uploading on this platform and is therefore error-free.The system is more important and beneficial for employees working on government establishment. The salary bills of government employees are prepared on this system, submitted online and the bills are processed and disbursed directly into the beneficiaries’ accounts by treasury officers on a real-time basis. Moreover, it enables preparation and modification of bills without manual interventions. Even the reports of pay bill, GPF, NPS, Income tax, Increments, salary slips, last pay certificates, acquaintance role, SLI and other insurances are viewed online.Another IT-based tool that is coming up as a viable core banking solution on real-time fund management is RBI devised ‘E-Kuber’. It is a standardised e-payment model that enables a completely automated process of fund flow yet ensures proper accounting, reconciliation, reporting and real-time credit to the beneficiaries. It happens to be the single point of release of payments, acceptance of confirmation hence real-time fund management.The locally developed application TreasuryNet is integrated with e-Kuber and has already been tested successfully. The transition would enable flexibility to operate a single account for entire payment with decentralised access to account from anywhere, anytime using portal-based service in a very secure manner. The safety features in this mechanism are highly advanced thereby ensuring secure and safe payments with greater time efficiency.These measures are proving revolutionary in making the overall business of treasuries smooth and efficient. Moreover, the additional steps in the pipeline would make it easier and people-friendly, meeting the true vision of good governance in the times to come.