© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Launching the Single Nodal Agency (SNA) dashboard, a system which tracks transfer of funds to states for centrally sponsored schemes and utilisation of funds by central agencies, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said it will make governance more transparent and realise better value for every rupee sent by the Centre by ‘just-in-time’ money release.
The SNA dashboard of the Public Financial Management System (PFMS), launched by Sitharaman as part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav Iconic Week Celebrations, was put in place in July 2021 and all states got on board by March this year. The SNA provides information about what the state has spent, and Centre releases the money only when it sees it getting utilised. Finance Ministry officials also spoke about another system for cash management, the Treasury Single Account (TSA) system, for autonomous bodies such as Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
Buy Now | Our best subscription plan now has a special price
Sitharaman said about Rs 4.46 lakh crore gets transferred to states by way of Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs) and the SNA would bring about greater transparency in the spending of the amount. “About Rs 4.46 lakh crore goes through the Centrally Sponsored Schemes and this is not a small amount. Today, you are in a position to track that money in a year to states … it is a huge success in making governance transparent. That quantum of money is also equally sent just in time … what better value realisation for every rupee sent,” she said.
As of date, there was Rs 1.2 lakh crore lying with the states in the SNA system. “That’s the unspent balance. So we need not give more money right now … the government has been able to save about Rs 10,000 crore in interest cost in the last fiscal due to the introduction of TSA,” an official said.
Finance Secretary T V Somanathan said this system would help cut down on the interest expenditure as money would be released at the stage where it is needed. “If the money is stuck somewhere, we would like to minimise what is stuck and hold it where it is more efficiently held. GoI would like to pay as little as possible of public money as interest. So the SNA and TSA help us to minimise the interest costs borne by the GoI and that is not a trivial cost. That actually helps us a lot, particularly in a difficult year like the current financial year. These are extremely helpful in containing fiscal deficit within what is possible,” Somanathan said.
‘Regulators should be well advanced on digitisation’
At a separate event, Sitharaman said regulators and other entities should be well advanced and ahead of the curve in understanding digitisation to ensure that there is no misuse of technologies, adding that there is need to have firewall mechanisms in the context of digitisation.
According to her, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) should be ahead of the curve in the context of digitisation to ensure fair and accountable practices as well as no misuse of technologies.
