There is a necessity of a sound system of tracking, monitoring and reporting of public expenditures, President Pranab Mukherjee said on Monday. Addressing a group of probationer officers, he said that good Public Financial Management System (PFMS) is the key to good governance.
In almost all countries of the world today, there is a move towards developing Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (IFMIS) and towards setting up standards in accounting, auditing and budgeting, the President said.
“The Government of India is also moving towards such a system. In India today this is a necessity in view of the increasing quantum of public expenditures which require a sound system of tracking, monitoring and reporting to be in place. In developing such a system we need to learn from best global practices and build upon them,” Mukherjee said.
The President said that there are rising expectations amongst the public for greater efficiencies in service delivery accompanied by transparency and accountability in government processes. In order to address these concerns, it is imperative for government departments to modernise systems by making best use of information and communication technology and to make such systems citizen-centric, secure, efficient, economical and transparent, he said.
The President was talking to probationers of Indian Defence Accounts Service, Indian Civil Accounts Service, Indian Railway Accounts Service and Indian P&T Finance & Accounts Service at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Tax Information Network, OlTAS, the National Pension System are all extremely fine examples of pan-India systems which have simplified life for the ordinary citizen and have introduced greater efficiency and transparency in key areas of government’s functioning, Mukherjee said.
He emphasised that this trend shall only intensify in the future and urged all officers to take part, as and when they have the opportunity to do so, in the development of such pan-India systems. Mukherjee expressed happiness that probationers are also taken to the USA for an exposure to financial management practices at the federal and the provincial government levels. He urged the probationers to assimilate the learnings that they gather from such important country exposures and apply them appropriately in the Indian context.
The President said that keeping pace with the fast-changing world of information and communication technology also requires constant up-gradation of systems and processes. “We need to examine how best we may use technology to make our payment and accounting systems seamless, as also progressively use IT tools in auditing to not only unearth frauds but also to evaluate and monitor the processes and outcomes of various government schemes. The challenges are many and the opportunities are vast and immense,” he said.
The President said that the Government of India decided to establish the National Institute of Financial Management (NIFM) in 1993 to train the newly recruited officers of the Finance and Accounts services. Mukherjee said that as Union Finance Minister, he was the President of the NIFM society between 2009 and 2012 which gave him the opportunity of getting to know about the activities of NIFM. He said that he was happy to say that NIFM had progressed well in the two decades of its existence.