Thiruvananthapuram: From January next year, pensions and salaries of Kerala government officials are to be credited to the Treasury. The move comes after authorities successfully completed the linking of 222 Treasury branches under a core banking network last week.
With the new system in place, bills of local organizations and contractors can be accepted online and money transferred to bank accounts. As Kerala becomes the first state in the nation to have implemented core banking in all Treasury operations, the era of officers directly handling money and paper files would come to an end.
The lack of ATM services had so far dissuaded employees from receiving money through Treasury branches. Similarly, money in one branch could not be withdrawn from any other branch. These restrictions would no more hamper transactions once core banking is implemented. This would mean that money in Treasury accounts can now be transferred to commercial banking accounts through online banking. Money in one branch can be withdrawn from any other Treasury branch as well. Standing instructions can be issued so that money is automatically credited to bank accounts from the Treasury at specific time periods.
The core banking facilities for Treasuries are being implemented by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). As part of building the IT skeleton, Treasuries were included in the secure state-wide area network that now connects Collectorates. BSNL's leased lines are to be used for the service. A high-capacity server has also been located at the State Data Centre.
About Rs 25 crore were spent for renovating the IT infrastructure of Treasuries using assistance from the central government's IFMS programme. The new IT infrastructure was piloted for two months and test results are believed to be satisfactory. What is remaining is the installation of high end computers in some locations.
By January, salaries of five lakh employees and pensions of about as much retired hands would be managed by the Treasury. The government spends Rs 2,000 crore for salaries and Rs 1,000 crore for pensions each month. Currently only 1.5 lakh pensioners use the Treasury's systems.
Even if some employees of pensioners maintain the money in the Treasury without transferring it to banks, it would help the financial position of the government. The program is scheduled to be inaugurated by CM Pinarayi Vijayan in January.
