37,545 bills worth Rs 4,793 cr on last day of financial year !!


By Kartik Lokhande 
A visit to ‘Koshwahini’ website of Finance Department of Maharashtra Government exactly at 12.01 AM on April 1, 2015; revealed the financial indiscipline in the State.
For, the total number of pending bills between April 1, 2014 and April 1, 2015 in the State stood at a whopping 76,743; and these bills were worth Rs 9469,74,29,898/-. If you thought that this is shocking, read on. Of these many pending bills, as many as 37,545 were put up on March 31, 2015, that is, the last day of the financial year 2014-15. And, the worth of these pending bills put up on March 31, was a whopping Rs 4793,20,51,736/-, slightly less than half of the amount of total pending bills for the entire financial year.
If division-wise comparisons are to be made in number of pending bills and their amount, politically influential Pune Division is the ‘top-notcher’ with 7,312 pending bills worth Rs 1241,19,77,678/- on March 31. Within Pune Division also, the highest number of pending bills -- 3,989 worth Rs 810,15,17,157/- -- could be attributed to Pune city and district alone. This was followed by Mumbai Pay and Accounts Office with 5,358 pending bills worth Rs 1079,53,91,920/-. These two were followed by Aurangabad Division with 6,514 pending bills worth Rs 633,65,35,378/-.
As far as Vidarbha region is concerned, the total number of pending bills as on March 31 was 6,803 in Nagpur Division. These bills were worth Rs 616,29,31,655/-. In Amravati Division, total number of pending bills on last day of financial year 2014-15 was 4,335. The amount of these bills was Rs 246,28,84,863/-.
According to sources, despite the new Government’s efforts to curb the financial indiscipline and submission of bills till the last hour of the financial year, many departments are in the habit of delaying the tender processes, work orders, and even submission of bills. In some cases, the grant received for various works to be done in a year was spent hurriedly only in the month of March, leaving little scope for quality of work done. In such cases, physical progress was seldom achieved and emphasis of the implementing agencies was only on ‘utilising’ (spending) the grant available to the fullest. Especially, this has been the habit in case of Pune and Aurangabad Divisions. And, this was reflected in the last day rush of bills, as revealed through data on ‘Koshwahini’ website.
Though the new Government has taken various initiatives like curbing the practice of submission project proposals after January, and issuing directions not to spend more than 15 per cent of funds allocated at the end of financial year; it appears that the road to financial disciplining of departments will take a long time.

The last day rush

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Division                       Number of                Total amount

                                    pending bills

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Pune                              7,312                Rs 1241,19,77,678

Mumbai PAO                5,358                Rs 1079,53,91,920

Aurangabad                  6,514                 Rs 633,65,35,378

Nagpur                          6,803                 Rs 616,29,31,655

Nashik                           2,626                Rs 502,72,97,925

Konkan                          4,597                Rs 473,50,32,317

Amravati                        4,335                Rs 246,28,84,863

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Total                             37,545                Rs 4793,20,51,736

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(March 31, 2015) 

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