NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government has saved as much as Rs 1 lakh crore due to efficiency improvements through the use of the Public Financial Management System (PFMS).

The Minister asked civil account officers to focus on bringing in more efficient and adaptive technologies to make the operation of the PFMS more efficient.

“The PFMS has silently enabled India to be accountable, responsive, and transparent. As a result, all over the world, DBT (direct benefit transfer) and GST are being talked about as a silent revolution a democracy can show off to the world,” Sitharaman said, addressing the 44th civil accounts day function.

PFMS is the management information system used by Indian Civil Accounts Service officers to maintain the accounts of the government.

It is also used to transfer funds to beneficiary accounts of various government schemes via DBT.

"Through the PFMS system, to date, Rs 6.29 lakh crore has been disbursed directly into beneficiary bank accounts within the framework of the various union and government schemes," government schemes.

Praising the system to improve the quality of government expenditure, expenditure secretary TV Somanathan, said the difference between audited and unaudited government accounts was consistently been lower than 1%.

"PFMS has facilitated the payment (of Rs. 50,000 crores) under the PM Kisan scheme for more than 8.46 million beneficiaries directly to their bank accounts," Somanathan said while speaking at the event.

However, more system improvements are needed. "There is a long way to go with regard to non-civil accounts, and the integration of the Department of Public Finance with the railways, defense and mail must go forward," Somanathan said.

Somanathan demanded that civil accounts be more responsive and to ensure that there were no payment delays in payments from their end.

On the sidelines of the event, Minister of State for Finance, Anuraj Singh Thakur, said GST collections were improving.

" On the GST groups, if you see in the past three months, there has been a continuous improvement. Over Rs 1 lakh crore collections and I am sure that the February numbers will be better, it will be above Rs 1 lakh crore.”

Source: Economics Times

Also Read: Now, TPG looks to join Jio juggernaut with billion-dollar bet