A one-day national workshop will be held in Bhopal on April 30 on innovations made in Madhya Pradesh to streamline accounting system and ensure transparency.
Joint and Additional Secretaries of Union Panchayat Raj Ministry, Central Accountant General (CAG), Accountant General Madhya Pradesh (MPAG), fiscal experts of various states, New Delhi and Bhopal-based representatives of National Informatics Science Centre (NIC) and senior officers of the state government will participate in the workshop. Nominated representatives of 5 Zila Panchayats, 5 Janpad Panchayats and 5 Gram Panchayats in the state will also take part in it.
The representatives of CRISP and CA firms appointed for audit of 3-tier Panchayats in the state will also participate in the workshop to be held jointly by the Panchayat Raj Directorate and the Mahatma Gandhi Rajya Grameen Vikas Sansthan, Jabalpur.
Additional Chief Secretary Panchayats, Rural Development and Social Justice Aruna Sharma informed that elected Sarpanchas and Panchayat Secretaries of Gram Panchayats implement about 150 schemes and sub-schemes of various government departments. For their smooth implementation, they have to maintain all reports enlisted by Accountant General under Double Entry Accounting System. They were facing difficulties in this due to lack of computer knowledge.
For overcoming this problem, Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj Department has launched innovation of Concurrent Audit System. The task of Concurrent Audit in 10 divisions of the state has been entrusted to suitable institutions after inviting global tenders and preparing proposal in consultation with the office of the Accountant General and Chartered Accountants Institute of India. For systemising maintenance of accounts at Gram, district and Janpad Panchayats, post-audit of Panchayats as well as all schemes of Rural Development and Social Justice Department was done for the first time in year 2012-13. Due to the first-time initiative for concurrent audit and inspection of accounts at the decentralized level, large number of inactive accounts has also been detected. This concurrent audit will lead to forceful implementation of basic development activities at the Panchayat level.
For simplifying accounting system, software Panchayat Darpan has been made available on the web portal www.mppanchayatdarpan.org. The most striking feature of this software is that it automatically prepares all scheme-wise details of audit report when 2 entries of account register and work register are made in it. Panchayat Darpan contains all information regarding Panchayat-level accounts and transactions. Besides, information about technical and administrative sanction for schemes being implemented by all 23006 Gram Panchayats, details of material, income and expenditure can also be obtained from it. The software is helping chartered accountant firms to maintain accounts of 3-tier Panchayat institutions systematically and smoothly.