Budget communication goes online

By our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, August 24: The Assam Government on Wednesday formally iugurated the online Budget communication process.

Briefing mediapersons after iugurating the online Budget communication process at the Assam Administrative Staff College in the city, State Fince Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the digitalization of the budget has been done for faster sanctioning and release of funds to the departments.  “Earlier it took nearly 45 days to transfer the Budget allocation to other departments as it had to pass through the Fince and Planning departments. But now it would hardly take 45 seconds for the budget allocated funds to reach the blocks from the director level,” Sarma stated.  Sarma cited examples of funds released under the North Eastern Council (NEC) and Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR) heads. “The funds released by the NEC and NLCPR took nearly two months to reach the block level. But with digitalization of the entire system, it would hardly take seconds for the funds to reach the grassroots level. It would remove the bottlenecks of the fund flowing system,” the minister quipped. Sarma also remarked that the budget digitalization would help fund allocation for several central programmes like police modernization, tiol Health Mission, Midday Meal and others. “Earlier the fund used to be released after gaining approval from the fince department. But now the fund will be directly transferred through online process,” he said.

“A notification has been already issued to the all the departments regarding the online disbursement of funds,” the minister further added.

Sarma, however, warned all the departments that with digitalization of the budget allocation process, timely submission of utilization certificates (UCs) is a must. “Allocation of funds will now be project-wise. The department concerned has to submit the UC of the project for further release of funds. Otherwise the fund flow will cease,” he concluded.

The meeting was also attended by Chief Secretary VK Pipersenia and other top levels officers of various departments of the State Government.