Chandigarh school education dept sets up amalgamated fund to streamline finances
Earlier, each school had to maintain different accounts and cash books for each of these funds these were allowed to be spent for specific purposes only
To streamline finances and to lower the non teaching workload of educators, the UT education department has introduced an amalgamated fund which will combine around 30 odd funds which, earlier, were maintained under different heads. This is the first such revision that the department has made since 1996.
Earlier, each school had to maintain different accounts and cash books for each of these funds these were allowed to be spent for specific purposes only. The money was collected from students from Classes 9 to 12 in government schools every month and the teachers had to collect and deposit it in the bank every month. But this will now be done online through a portal developed by NIC.
The government amalgamated fund rules have now received the approval of the UT administrator and will come into effect from August 1. After verified closing balance of cashbooks of all funds of government schools is submitted by July 31, only online monetary transactions will be allowed and manual transactions will be banned from August 1.
Explaining this, UT director school education Harsuhinderpal Singh Brar said, “By taking the accounts online, there will be no scope of any embezzlement and all transactions will be transparent. It will decrease the workload of teachers also as they will now have to maintain the cash book for just one amalgamated fund and that too online.”
Speaking about the necessity of this change, Brar added that the various heads of the funds were drafted back in 1996 and are not as relevant now. There are funds like cycle funds which all schools maintain which are not as relevant anymore. Further, the cash under these funds could only be spent for that specific purpose. But under the amalgamated fund there is flexibility in spending this money based on the needs of the schools.
The money collected under various components of the amalgamated fund will be deposited in the personal ledger account with the UT treasury which will be operated by the head/principal of the school or any gazetted officer of the school authorised by the director school education. A single cash book ledger and stock register will have to be maintained.
The audit of the fund accounts shall be conducted by the local audit party or under the orders of the examiner, local fund account, Chandigarh.
