April 03, 2002

'15'

    Shri K.C. Pant, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission has said that reporting, monitoring and analysis of Plan funds by the Controller General of Accounts would enable the Planning Commission to keep a close watch on the pace of the sectoral programme implementation. Shri Pant expressed concern that cost and time over-runs continue to affect projects and programme implementation and emphasised that it was time to move towards output-oriented budgeting and project specific funding. He was speaking at the inauguration of a three day Conference on "Financial Reforms: Issues and Challenges" organised in connection with the Silver Jubilee Celebrations of the Indian Civil Accounts Organisation (ICAO), today. Shri Pant called for a greater and more innovative use of the expertise available in the Civil Accounts Organisation to curb the growth of Government expenditure and in ensuring that built-up assets are utilized productively.

    In a speech read out on his behalf at the Conference, Shri Y.V. Reddy, Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India referred to the close interaction between the RBI and the CGA's Organisation in the management of the Government accounts. A state of the art system has been set up for this purpose at the RBI, Nagpur, providing on-line data processing capability and on-line connectivity to all the RBI offices, agency banks and State Governments. A virtual private network is also being established between CGA and the Principal Accounts Offices of Government of India Ministries which would act as a hub for electronic interchange of information between RBI, Nagpur and Central Ministries. This would eliminate most of the reconciliation problems at the level of the Central Government, he added. Shri Reddy stated that the RBI would, in due course, shed retail banking business of Governments and was also considering private banks for conduct of Government business.

    Speaking at the Conference, Smt. Usha Sahajpal, the Controller General of Accounts focused on major improvements of ICAO, especially the replacement of the treasury set up by banks and the systems set up by CGA for effective accounting and monitoring of Government expenditures and revenues.

    Shri V.N. Kaul, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India referred to the challenges before the Indian economy relating to the management of fiscal liability and the quality of expenditure control and scrutiny and emphasised that the Civil Accounts Organisation should gear itself to providing valuable analytical inputs to the Government in managing these aspects.