PANJIM: All 191 village panchayats in Goa will now have to enter their accounts in the PRIASoft portal (Panchayat Raj Institutions Accounting Software) of the Ministry which monitors the revenue and expenditure of the local bodies.
The Union Ministry has established online accounting portal of the village panchayats of the country, wherein they have to enter details of their revenue and expenditure for monitoring under Public Finance Management System (PFMS). All the panchayats have to go onboard by February 29. In a communication to State Secretary Sanjay Gihar, Union Ministry Joint Secretary Dr Sanjeeb Patjoshi said that only 52 panchayats out of 191 have come on board of the system for online payment, while of these only three have started doing online transactions.
He added that it is requested to encourage all the panchayats in the State to commence on boarding on the PRIASoft-PFMS interface (PPI) and subsequently initiate online payments for expenditure incurred under Central Finance Commission funds.
“It is pertinent to mention here that the Finance Commission has mandated that the expenditure of all the funds pertaining to the Finance Commission may be utilised via a PRIASoft -PFMS interface only and no other forms of payment may be used. Moreover, auditing of these funds utilised is also mandatory for sanctioning of funds,” Patjoshi said.
PRIASoft aims to keep track of all the inflow (receipts) and out-flow (expenditure) of the panchayats. The application facilitates better financial managements of panchayats by bringing about transparency and accountability in the maintenance of accounts thereby leading to better credibility and ultimately strengthening of the local bodies. Patjoshi further said that the Ministry has been in the process of putting a robust system for effective monitoring of public expenditure.
