Tamil Nadu finance department to delegate more autonomy to other departments in expenditure decision

The Tamil Nadu Department of Finance, which manages the state government’s public finances, aims to delegate more autonomy to other departments over spending decisions while ensuring that accountability is significantly strengthened.

The department ensures efficient use of public funds and plans to make the audit system more robust and efficient, says the department’s 2022-2023 policy brief presented by Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan to the Assembly on Saturday.

The department’s vision is to ensure the sustainability of the state’s fiscal health through prudent budget management, with a broad prioritization of sectors and initiatives. The department also adopts modern practices with technological interventions, to meet ever-changing challenges. The Department manages the macro elements of the annual budget in terms of aggregate level of revenue and expenditure. As part of this, the department aims to delegate more autonomy to other departments, the guidance note says.

Regarding the efficient use of public funds, the department plans to strengthen the integrated financial and human resources management system (IFHRMS) and the treasury system; track the flow of funds to other departments and agencies; strengthening of the audit system; adoption of modern budgetary practices; increase accountability and productivity; improve the efficiency of procurement processes, says the policy brief.

New Asset Management System (AMS)

In the 2022-2023 Budget Speech, it was also announced that to account for all the government’s movable and immovable assets and to monitor their use, a new SMS will be introduced and integrated into the SIRHSF starting next year. Cloud-based AMS software has been developed by the Tamil Nadu eGovernance Agency to optimize resource utilization by tracking the life cycle of all government department assets.

This software is being updated to allow ministries to know precisely all the assets they own. This, in turn, would allow for proper accounting, with maintenance budgeting ensuring longer asset life. The data collected would be retrieved in the IFHRMS for accounting and better budgeting.

Departments of the Public Department (within the Secretariat), Revenue and Disaster Management, DGP Office and Commercial Tax Departments uploaded details of their assets using AMS software on a pilot. The finance department also updates the asset details in the above software and the necessary instructions have also been given to department heads under the control of the finance department to update the details through the relevant drawdown and disbursement agent, Policy Note said.

The Tamil Nadu Emerging Sector Seed Fund, which was established to invest in startups and other ventures in emerging sectors, has obtained SEBI approval to raise capital with a targeted corpus of Rs.500 crores.

The Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Limited and TIDEL Park Limited have pledged for Rs 30 crore and Rs 20 crore respectively, the policy note says.

Published on

May 08, 2022