Recommendations of the 14th JRM on

Financial Management & Procurement

30th Review Meeting of State FCs- Delhi (4th - 5th August 2011)

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• Held from July 18-28, 2011.

• Undertook desk review.

• Aide Memoire relating to FM&P is enclosed.

• Key recommendations on FM&P

(a) filling in all vacant positions including those block level in a time bound manner and

(b) Use of the Financial Accounting Software (FAS) by all States, ensuring full geographical coverage.

• MHRD to ensure that FAS is implemented fully in spirit and action in the top ten spending SSA States (by the January 2012 JRM).

14th JRM recommendations on FM&P

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Statutory Audit • Receipt of all Audit Reports were on time.

• Regular of monitoring of the audit process for the large spending States to ensure audit process completed within the stipulated time.

Audit Observations • Certain States like Bihar, West Bengal,

Chhattisgarh, Punjab etc. need to prepare State specific FM improvement plan with the clear objective of reduction in recurring and serious audit observations.

• MHRD should monitor the FM improvement plans for the large spending States with the significant or serious audit observations (5-7 States)

14th JRM Recommendations on FM&P

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FM Staffing • FM action against States that are unable to hire

district/block level accounts staff within a certain time frame.

Accounting Software• 100% implementation of FAS in the top 10

spending SSA States (by the January 2012 JRM).

• States to provide information on Name of the software in use No. of districts No. of districts where FAS is fully operational (for

at least 3 months) The number of districts that have discontinued

manual record keeping. The number of districts were the data generated

by the FAS is the basis for audit.

Recommendations on FM&P

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Strategic use of Internal Audit• Ministry should encourage strengthening strategic

use of internal audit in SSA by ensuring the independence of auditors, revision of FM&P Manual (and related guidelines/circulars), provision for annual audit plan to mainly cover internal control and risk management in priority and strategic areas, review the staff support of internal audit to meet the new responsibilities and strengthening GOI oversight for internal audit with dedicated resources in the Ministry.

Monitoring of FM for SSA• The FMRs (especially in the Part II of the

quarterly reports) should provide additional quality related inputs with the statistical information for the indicators of FM checks mentioned in Para 103 of the MFM&P.

Recommendations on FM&P

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Procurement• Linking the reporting software to the procurement

plans prepared by the States, so that the tool will be integrated with the project implementation and can be used for progress monitoring of procurement by SPDs.

• A smaller focused meeting of the software with procurement experts and practitioners in SSA for further improvements before the same is rolled out.

• The forthcoming Mission need to focus on roll-out of Procurement MIS and improvement in textbook printing specifications, bidding etc. that MHRD aims to support States in the coming months.

Recommendations on FM&P

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