Aswini Kumar Mishra, Special Secretary, Finance Department, Government of Odisha
There has been significant achievement in utilising information communication technology for different activities of Finance Department. Finance Department is responsible for formulation of fiscal policy, mobilisation of resources, framing of budget, allocation of funds to different Departments and enforcing financial discipline in government expenditure.
Besides improving efficiency and transparency in financial administration, computerisation of different activities of Finance Department facilitates the public interface and catalyzes the decision making process. What follows is a compendium of the leading achievements of the department.
| Treasury Computerisat ion: Integrat ed Odisha Treasury Management System (iOTMS)• Introduced initially in 2007 as an online Odisha Treasury Management System, the present web based application (iOTMS) came into existence in 2009.• iOTMS allows all stake holders of Treasury namely; Administrative departments (AD), Controlling officers, Drawing and disbursing officers (DDO), taxpayers, Accountant General, Reserve Bank of India(RBI) and the agency banks to access the system through internet.• Fifteen public and private sector banks are integrated with treasury portal for electronic receipt of government taxes and dues facilitating the taxpayers and citizens.  • Presently 80 percent of total receipts on account of Commercial taxes and Mining royalties are received through e-receipts. 
• Collecting banks remit the electronic receipt through the RBI enabling faster remittance of funds to government account and easy reconciliation.  • The entire budget distribution exercise involving the Grant controlling authorities and Budget controlling officers is made through the Treasury portal. • All payments including the payments for public works expenditure issued through cheque by the cheque drawing DDOs are processed through iOTMS. While authorising payments, • Using the pensioners’ database, pension is now credited to the account of the pensioner electronically. The pensioners do not come to the treasury/ bank every month to collect pension. • Since August 2012, e-payment to payee account in respect of ADs and Heads of Department has started through iOTMS using RBI platform in respect of all disbursement, like salary • Real time generation of reports on revenue and expenditure through the centralised web-based architecture has facilitated faster decision making. • iOTMS is winner of CSI-Nihilent e-governance ‘Award of Appreciation’ for 2010-11. • Winner of Gold under the category ‘Best Government Portal’ at National awards for e- governance for 2011-12. • The road ahead include: o Extension of e-disbursement to whole of the state by September 2013 o Online bill submission o Online submission of accounts to AG o Mobile-based transaction and reporting system o Sanction order repository
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| Online Budget Compilat ion System:• Online Budget Compilation System was introduced in Odisha during the year 2011-12. The entire budgetary process starting from proposal initiation by different departments to budget finalization is done only online.• Following broad advantages are derived by using the Online Budget Compilation System for Budget preparation:
o No need to enter the full chart of account. Only figure against existing chart of account are to be entered – Error in account head & mis-classification minimized o The system automatically calculates the minor head-wise, major-head wise and voted/charged wise total figure – Minimize calculation error o Transaction time is substantially minimised. o Easy to handle- User friendly o Saving man-days/hours – 15,000 man-hours saved annually. o Paperless transaction (Green Initiative) – Save about 500 rims of paper annually o Can view/ download any budget-related documents • The re-appropriation module has been introduced during 2012-13 as part of the Online Budget Compilation System. All the re-appropriation proposals are processed and approved only online, which is saving substantial amount of transaction time.
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| Computerisation of Commercial Taxes: e-services project
• Introduced Centralised Value Added Tax Information System in 2005, which was an internal application having no interface with the stakeholders.• The Commercial Tax Department’s e-services project was initiated in April 2010 • The following services are provided to the stakeholders: o e-filing of returns registered dealers o e-payment facilities to the stakeholders by integration through iOTMS o system generated e-waybill by the dealers without going to the Commercial Tax office o system generated e-transit passes by the transporters and dealers of other states o Passing of vehicles at check gates by swipe of the e-transit pass with bar code o Return on utilisation of way bills discontinued as it is automatically generated o Dealers of other states enabled to print e-way bills by using their respective TIN and the e-way bill number provided by the dealers of Odisha o Dealers are enabled to generate different registers prescribed under CST rules through the CTD portal • SMS-based Value Added Services (VAS) have been rolled out for the reconciliation of e-payments, generation of e-way bills based on transit passes issued by Mines • Real time MIS enables the Government for an improved and informed decision making • e-reconciliation reduces the work load and the paper usage • Prevention of Tax evasion by cross verification with the use of ICT • Future Road Map: o Simplified registration process to ensure faster disposal and easy registration by new business entities o Introduction of electronic application and issue of VAT clearance certificate and no-deduction certificate o Integrated audit and assessment process on scrutiny of e-returns o Integration with external agencies like customs, excise and NSDL for data sharing |