Depts heads to be responsible for any lapse of funds

Srinagar, Mar 9: With the fiscal year coming to an end, the Finance Department has directed departmental heads to avoid any lapse of funds and streamline spending in their respective departments.
Crores of funds get lapsed annually in the state due to their non-utilisation within the scheduled time. The departmental heads have been directed for timely utilisation of funds and asked to fix the responsibility if funds were allowed to lapse.
Principal Secretary Finance Department, Arun Mehta on March 7, issued directives to avoid rush of expenditure on procurement in the last weeks of the fiscal.
“All the administrative secretaries must effectively supervise and shall be responsible for ensuring compliance of the standard measures and streamline spending in departments,” the directives read.
The director finance and financial advisors have been directed to assist the administrative secretaries in securing the compliance to the measures and also submit regular report to the finance department for any violation of guidelines.
An official said that governor-led administration has taken a strong note of lapse of funds over the past several years. “Officials have been told they will face the action if there is lapse of any funds once the fiscal year is end,” the official said.
The official said that bureaucrats have been told to make proper guidance to government and sarpanchs about the source of funds for developmental works.
The departments have also been told that developmental works should be started with proper approval from Planning and Finance Department to know the source of funds.
“The concerned officials will be held responsible if these works get affected for want of funding,” an official of the General Administration Department said.
The departments have also been directed to submit monthly progress report. Government has failed to evaluate performance of their departments on the basis of timeline completion of targets, outcomes of the schemes, priorities fixed, quality of work done, and status of benefits of projects.
This is because departments are not submitting their performance report to the government. “Most of the officials are hiding the performance details about their departments,” the official added