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OFFICE OF CHIEF CONTROLLER OF ACCOUNTS

MINISTRY OF SURFACE TRANSPORT

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

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A.PRESENT PROCEDURE.

B.PROPOSED PROCEDURE.

PROPOSAL FOR DIRECT PAYMENT FOR EXECUTION OF NATIONAL HIGHWAY WORKS.

BACKGROUND :- Construction and maintenance of National Highways is done by State Government/Union Territory Government on behalf of Govt. of India M/o Surface Transport. At present expenditure on National Highway is initially incurred by Executive Engineer of the State PWD from State Balances. Accounts are thus maintained by State AG, who books the expenditure under ‘suspense’. Subsequently, State Govt./Union Territory Government raises reimbursement claims for the work done on the agency basis. Claim for reimbursement is raised to Regional Pay and Accounts Officer O/o Chief Controller of Accounts, M/o Surface Transport, who makes the payment to State AG. There is a well laid procedure for making payment with respect to Nation Highway which is being followed by Regional Pay and Accounts Officer. State AG receives the payment for the admissible amount and clears the suspense operated by him. This procedure takes more than 3 months, thus, State remains out of cash to the tune of amount raised for reimbursement for such a long period. States are finding it extremely difficult to manage their a depleted cash and at times they utilised the money reimbursed for National Highway works for other purposes. Thus, this circle of incurring expenditure – getting reimbursement and incurring fresh expenditure is broken.

State Governments are time and again representing their problems relating to delay in the getting the reimbursement claims through the existing procedure. Mainly, in the case of a big project where financial implications are large, the State Governments are, sometime, not in a position to issue the Letter of Credit with required amount in time. As a result of this, State PWD is unable to make payment for the project. In the absence of the payment, State Government can not raise its claim with the Central Government and this brings a vicious circle of cash flow problem with the State Government. On the other hand, despite money being available with the Central Government such projects suffer very badly along with adverse financial consequences, due to inordinate delay in payment.

2. PRESENT PROCEDURE :- At present the accounting procedure for maintenance of expenditure on National Highways is as per the accounting procedure formulated in 1977 by M/o Shipping & Transport in consultation with C&AG and Department of Expenditure. As per the said procedure, the expenditure is initially incurred by the State PWD and on receipt of the monthly compiled account from the Divisions the AGs send to PAO(NH), the Monthly statement of receipts (if any) and expenditure on National Highways with all schedules, vouchers, supporting documents etc for claiming reimbursement. The PAO, there after reimburses the AG by Cheque/Demand Draft after exercising the prescribed checks.

It may be stated that during the last financial year when Special Repair Programme was introduced to take up the crash programme of special repair within short/limited time, it was thought proper that simultaneously Direct payment Procedure may be introduced. This was agreed to by the concerned authorities & the system was implemented for the period from 1-1-2000 to 31-3-2000.

The Direct Payment Procedure was approved for externally Aided Schemes in the Punjab States and Special Repairs of National Highways by C&AG vide letter no. 725-AC.I/SP.II/16-98 dated 15-12-99.

 

3. PROPOSED PROCEDURE :- The present proposal is for changing the procedure for payment on the lines of that approved for externally aided project for Punjab and Special Repair Programme vide PAO/NH/New Procedure/Dir. Payment/99-2000/1935 dt. 15-12-1999. The procedure to be followed shall be as under :-

  1. Supervising Engineer i.e. the concerned Executive Engineer or the PWD will submit certified bills of contractors to Regional Officer of M/o Surface Transport. He will verify the payment and give all necessary approval as per PWD procedure.
  2. The bill submitted by the Supervising Engineer will include separately, agency charges payable.
  3. Regional Officers of MOST will be the drawing and disbursing officer (DDO) and will present the bill to the concerned Regional Pay & Accounts Officer for payment.

d) 8658-PAO Suspense which was being operated by Accountant General in the old procedure would not be operated in this system. There is no change in the existing accounting heads to be operated by Govt. of India in the proposed "Direct Payment System" yet these heads of A/cs. are reproduced below :-

  1. MH 3054-Roads & Bridges 01 National Highways.

(i) 01.052 Machinery & Equipment.

      1. Machinery & Equipment (Non Plan).

(ii) 01.337 Roads Works

    1. Maintenance by Road Wing
      1. Minor Works (Non Plan)

(iii) 01.00.27 Minor Works (Plan ) [SPECIAL REPAIRS].

(iv) All other activities coovered under the existing Reimbursement Procedure

  1. MH5054-Capital Outlay on Roads & Bridges.

(i) 01 National Highways.

01.052 Machinery & Equipment.

02 Machinery & Equipment

      1. Machinery & Equipment (PLAN)

        2. (ii) 01.101 Permanent Bridges

        02 Work Financed from Permanent Bridge Fee fund.

      2. Major Works (PLAN)

(iii) 01 Works under Road Wing

01.01 Externally Aided Schemes

      1. Major Works

(iv) 01.02 Other Schemes

      1. Major Works (PLAN)

01.02.53 Other Schemes (charged) C. Code 023/182

(v) 01.04 Counter-part fund for externally Aided schemes of Road Wing

      1. Major Works (PLAN)
  1. All other activities covered under the existing Reimbursement Procedure
  1. Regional Officer of MOST acting as DDO will maintain all necessary records before making the payment to Supervising Engineer.
  2. RPAO will draw the cheques as per payment instructions of RO in favour of the parties and pass them to RO who in turn will pass them to the Supervising Engineer after making necessary entries in his records.
  3. The Supervising Engineer will disburse the amount to the concerned parties.
  4. As far as agency charges are concerned the same will be paid by the RPAO to the State A.G. for crediting to the A/cs. of State Govt. (P.W. Deptt.) as the state P.W. Deptt. is executing work on behalf of the Central Govt. on agency basis & these agency charges are to be accounted for by the State A.G. (A&E) as receipt in the State Accounts. This receipt may not be mixed up with the re-imbursement procedure already adopted for the reasons that in the later case the cheques are issued by the RPAO to liquidate the balances under ‘8658-Suspense A/c.-PAO Suspense-Amount adjustable by RPAO (MOST)" in the books of State AG. against the claims raised for National highways.
  1. The payment of OAP for the year 2000-2001 released to these 14 states are to be adjusted/recovered as under :-
The amount will be adjusted to the maximum extent out of the claims upto August 2000 preferred by the State Govt. through the State A.G
The balance of OAP, if any, will be adjusted against the agency charges payable to the States for the ensuing period of the current financial year.
In case the amount of OAP, if any, still remains to be adjusted, the State Govt. will be asked to refund the amount in cash by issue cheque/DD favour of the RPAO concerned.

j. All receipts (Miscellaneous) inclusive of receipts from DOT, Electricity Board & PHED pertaining to NH would be deposited by means cheque/DD. The P.W.Divisions would send the cheque/DD to the Regional Officer (DDO) who in turn would pass on to the RPAO for crediting in their accredited bank. On clearance of such cheques/DD the amount will be accounted for by the RPAO under the relevant Major Head of A/c. i.e. "MH1054-other receipts". Such receipts will not be taken as reduction of expenditure as normally done by the State PWD.

 k. Vouchers in r/o claims relating to departmental works which are disallowed by the RPAO as inadmissible for one or the other reasons would be returned immediately to the R.O. (DDO) for onward transmission to the State P.W. Deptt. for accounting them against head of A/c. relevant to the State Govt. In no case such inadmissible claims are to be accommodated under "MH8658-suspense, A/c. Suspense".

l. Office of the Supervising Engineer will maintain all the records of payments/disbursements and send a monthly demand of disbursements and send a monthly demand of disbursements to RO,RPAO,CCA AND DG (RD) & AS.

m. RPAO will send details of payments of agency charges to the State Accountant General every month.

n) State Govt. will be responsible for physical and financial progress of the project.

o) The collection of toll fees, other toll related charges, permanent bridge fee fund etc. which are governed by National Highways Act and National Highways Rules will not be affected by the proposed Direct Payment procedure. These will continue to be deposited by the divisions/agencies through the demand drafts with PAO (NH) New Delhi as it was being done in the past.

In order to over-come the difficulty arising due to tight financial position of State PWD it would be appropriate to make the proposed scheme effective at the earliest. If approved, payments and accounting through this revised procedure may be followed in the States of Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Punjab, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh w.e.f. 15th September 2000 for all development and maintenance works [as indicated in (d) above].

 

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Last modified: October 05, 2000

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