the goan I network
PANAJI
In a bid to end the trend of government departments going on a spending spree to utilize and exhaust budgetary provisions as the financial year ends, the Finance Department has listed a series of austerity measures and directed heads of all departments to provide a monthly expenditure plan (MEP) in advance to enable it to regulate spending patterns.
Heads of departments, according to a detailed 4-page ‘office memorandum’ issued by Finance Secretary Daulat Hawaldar, are to submit MEPs separately for capital as well as revenue expenditure for January, February and March 2020, in advance.
It also states that no department will be allowed to spend more than 20 per cent of the whole year’s budget estimates pertaining to it in these last three months of the financial year 2019-20.
In addition, the ‘office memorandum’ also calls for a 25 per-cent cut in budgetary revenue expenditure other than debt and interest repayments. Payments of salaries and pensions by the departments have also been excluded from the need to cut expenditure by 25 per-cent of the annual budget estimates.
Another diktat of the Finance Department included in the office memorandum was that departments will not be allowed to re-appropriate and transfer funds allocated for one scheme to be spent on another one of the same department. But re-appropriation of salary and wages heads under schemes could be allowed on a case-to-case basis, it said.
The department heads are also banned from making any purchases of furniture, cupboards, electrical appliances, computers, printers, computer-related peripherals, photocopiers, air-conditioners and telephone instruments.
The ‘office memorandum’ also issued instructions to the Director of Accounts not to entertain any bills related to purchases of all these banned items during these last three months of the current fiscal.
Heads of departments have also been instructed to ensure that in the January-February-March quarter, payments are made only for purchases made and other expenditure of previous months and not for new purchases.
However, the ban on new expenditure is exempted for advance payments to contractors for work orders already issued, payments towards loans and advances to government servants and for other inevitable expenditure.
Heads of departments have also been asked to nominate a ‘nodal officer’ for each ‘demand for grant’ and furnish details including the name, telephone number and email ID to the Finance Department.
