Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said that accounts of the government need to be error free since they inform the nation on the state of public finances.
"The sanctity of work is important and involves a high level of efficiency which adds to the integrity of the government," Jaitley said while delivering the inaugural address at the 42nd Civil Accounts Day function here.
He further asserted that the accounting system should never come under questioning and in this regard, he was happy to note that the sanctity and the credibility of the accounting system and the organisation has been maintained, over the years.
On the occasion, the Finance Minister also inaugurated centralised General Provident (GP) fund module of Public Financial Management System (PFMS) for all the central government employees, and electronic Pension Payment Order (e-PPO) module of PFMS for the complete end to end electronic processing of pension cases.
The centralised GP fund module meets a long standing demand of the central government employees for a mapping of GP fund accounts with the unique employee ID, thereby facilitating online application for GP fund advances and withdrawals with online access to the employee's current GP fund balances.
The module will streamline GP fund accounting and transfer of balances. The e-PPO, meanwhile, includes the integration of the BHAVISHYA application of the Department of Pension and Pensioners' Welfare and the Pension Authorization Retrieval and Accounting System (PARAS) application of Central Pension Accounting Office (CPAO) with Public Financial Management System (PFMS) for seamless processing of pension cases, thereby eliminating delays and errors involved in manual processing.
Ajay Narayan Jha, Secretary (Expenditure), Ministry of Finance; Rajnish Kumar, Chairman, State Bank of India; Anthony Lianzuala, Controller General of Accounts and other senior officers of the Indian Civil Accounts Service were also present on the occasion.