Central sector schemes to come under PFMS

Looking to improve financial management and monitor usage of funds under the central sector schemes (CSS), the government has decided to bring all such schemes on its Public Financial Management System.
The Public Financial Management System (PFMS), administered by the Department of Expenditure, is an end-to- end solution for processing payments, tracking, monitoring, accounting, reconciliation and reporting. It provides the scheme managers a unified platform for tracking releases and monitoring their last mile utilisation.
The Finance Ministry has directed all the ministries to bring central sector schemes on the PFMS platform. Registration on the system has been made mandatory for implementing agencies receiving and utilising CSS funds.

Central sector schemes such as MGNREGA, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan and MPLAD are fully supported by the central government and are being implemented by various departments.
"The complete monitoring of these schemes (CSS) will require mandatory registration of all implementing agencies (IAs) on PFMS and mandatory use of Expenditure, Advance & Transfer (EAT) module of the PFMS by all IAs, the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently had emphasized the need for improved financial management in implementation of central plan schemes so as to facilitate just-in-time releases and monitor the usage of funds including information on its ultimate utilisation.

The implementation plan covers the complete universalisation of CSS, which inter-alia requires certain steps to be taken by each ministry/ department like bringing the Central Sector Schemes on the PFMS platform, mandatory registration of implementing agencies receiving and utilizing funds on PFMS, the statement said.
The statement said that central ministries or departments have been directed to complete the full roll-out of PFMS in respect of the ministry/department and attached/ subordinate offices by October 31, 2016, and for all grantee institutions by March 31 2017.