Andhra Pradesh Finance department is all set to operationalise the first phase of its ambitious Comprehensive Financial Management System (CFMS) for processing all financial transactions online including the disbursement of new Pay Revision Commission scales to government employees from June 1.
The system aims to fundamentally change the way government manages its public finances and bring in transparency with real time management of funds. It integrates all activities like budget, expenditure, HRMS, revenue, accounts, ways and means and debt management, explain officials.
Notwithstanding the teething problems in CFMS, its trial operations have started. The system called ‘e-Nidhi’ however will face its first major test when it processes the pay fixation data of each and every employee and to be validated by the Drawing and Disbursement Officer of every department.
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The new system will process the new 10{+t}{+h}PRC scales for about 4.3 lakh government employees and three lakh pensioners, officials said.
Normally pay revision is all done manually. HoD reviews, revises before issuing the guidelines and then it goes to the Treasury. “What we are trying to do is automate the entire process without manual intervention,” sources said.
The employees on their part have to provide all the service related information for data entry to get the pay in the new system. Once the revised salary bill is generated as per the 10{+t}{+h}PRC pay rules, it will be routed through the Treasury into the bank accounts of the employees.
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The Finance Department, meanwhile, started the familiarisation process of employees with the new system. It set up e-Nidhi portal, a help desk to provide clarifications to the employees and will also provide training for the master trainers on entering the data accurately.
However, sources said the process involved is massive as the data from the service registers of the employees from July 1, 2013 is required to be entered for pay fixation as per 10{+t}{+h}Pay Revision Commission recommendations and accordingly fitment, increments will be calculated by the software.
The software will work based on the data and logic fed into the system and any lapse on data entry is bound to affect the outcome. “Therefore it is better for employees to sit with their DDOs concerned and cross check whether the system generated pay fixation under 10{+t}{+h}PRC scales is accurate or not before the salary bill is forwarded to the treasury for payment,” they said.
The Telangana State in view of the massive work to be done and shortage of time decided to calculate the 10{+t}{+h}PRC fixation by the existing system instead of the CFMS.