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For UP government departments, all roads lead to treasuries on closing day
With the state government allowing them to submit bills up to March 31, the last day of current financial year, various departments are making last minute rush to the treasuries to get payments for works
With the state government allowing them to submit bills up to March 31, the last day of current financial year, various departments are making last minute rush to the treasuries to get payments for works.
The decision to allow the departments to submit their bills till the last day of financial year has been taken in view of increased work pressure on drawing and disbursing officers in the month of March.
“Keeping in view the problems of the departments, I have been asked to convey that all the drawing and disbursing officers may submit their bills to the treasuries in time by March 31. This will ensure that treasuries make e-payment for the bills passed in the current financial year,” said additional chief secretary (ACS) finance S Radha Chauhan in an order dated March 26 and sent to all the ACSs, heads of department, divisional commissioners and district magistrates.
ACS finance, in her order, has also noted that the decision to allow submission of bills up to March 31 was taken as the departments may not have been able to submit their bills by the deadline (March 25).
The state government, in its orders issued on March 8, had asked the departments to issue all the financial sanctions by March 15 and ensure that the bills were submitted to treasuries for payment by March 25.
A close analysis of the functioning of various departments indicates that the departments were issuing financial sanctions for various works after March 15.
The state government’s departments have issued more than 1,330 government orders (mostly financial sanctions) from March 15 to March 30 against nearly 1,230 government orders issued during the same period in 2020.
These include sanctions issued for buying land for the defence corridor in Aligarh and Lucknow, shifting of utilities for Ganga Expressway (Prayagraj to Meerut), remodeling of Ram-ki-Pedi project and carry out various works for development of Maryada Purusottam Sriram Airport, Ayodhya and NOIDA International Airport (Jewar), Gautam Buddha Nagar.
While the ACS finance and other senior officers of the state government were not available for comments those aware with the development said this was not for the first time that departments were are issuing sanctions in the last month of any financial year or making last minute rush to submit their bills to the treasuries.
The state government’s departments have been doing so in recent years to ensure that the funds allocated to them do not lapse.
Yes, there is a pattern to issue sanctions at the last minute. Ideally, this last-minute rush should be avoided to ensure greater transparency and better utilization of funds. But the departments may have some compulsions after decision to scrap the public ledger accounts. The departments obviously want to ensure that the funds allocated to them are used,” said Yashvir Tyagi, former professor department of economics, Lucknow University.
