ET has seen a copy of the letter.
The move is aimed at bringing more transparency in the usage of funds by various ministries and departments.
“This will help in both transparency and quick reconciliation of funds for seamless accounting,” said a senior official, who did not wish to be identified.
The department is planning to lower the threshold further to ₹50 crore from the next financial year, the official said.
The idea is to minimise the reconciliation of accounts by government departments, making it within 24 hours of the release of the fund, the official said. This means the Centre may be able to get the exact expenditure number on realtime basis, which currently is delayed by at least a month. Also many times there are discrepacies between the Centre’s accounts and bank statement shared by the ministries. This will also help in tracking any delay in payment to vendors or contractors.”The account with accredited banks would not deal with such transactions and payment of the transactions exceeding ₹75 crore would be released through the e-Kuber system of the RBI,” the letter said.
The e-Kuber is the core banking solution developed by the RBI and it is used for various banking operations, including government transactions, auctioning of government securities and managing government funds.
The threshold was earlier fixed at ₹500 crore, but it was reduced to ₹100 crore for some transactions specified by the Centre.
“RBI would provide the e-scrolls/debit notifications, account statement and account wise DMS (date-wise monthly statement) to concerned PAOs (Pay and Accounts office) as hitherto for accounting and reconciliation purposes,” the letter said.
This will also help streamline transaction settlements between government accounts and external entities.
Content Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com