Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Oct 27 launched the mandatory use of the Public Finance Management System (PFMS) for all central sector schemes. These schemes have an outlay of Rs 6,66,644 crore, and covers over 31 per cent of the total central government expenditure during the current financial year 2017-18.
Speaking at the launch, Jaitley said PFMS, with the capability of providing real time information on resource availability, flows and actual utilization had the potential to improve programme and financial management, reduce the float in the financial systems by enabling ‘just in time’ releases. Through the PFMS, one can know the actual status of utilization of funds by the multiple implementing agencies of the central and the state governments.
As of now 13 central sector schemes are under the PFMS. There are 613 central sector schemes across civil ministries and departments of the Government of India. The mandatory PFMS on-boarding for the remaining schemes and programmes including the centrally sponsored schemes are also targeted to be achieved in a phased manner.
According to Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa, more than 300 central and state government schemes are now riding on PFMS. Payment of more than Rs 2.91 lakh crore relating to various schemes under Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) has been made through PFMS since 2013. He said the PFMS has enabled Government to take forward the ground breaking initiative of DBT with collateral benefits of plugging leakages and eliminating ghost beneficiaries.
So far, payments to 34.19 crore beneficiaries have been made through PFMS and there are 21.72 lakh programme implementing agencies registered on this platform. The PFMS has interface with 170 banks including the Reserve Bank of India .
Government believes this will have a cascading beneficial impact on the management of state government public finances as well as efficient delivery of public services by the states.
