Early Times Report
Jammu, Nov 30: Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has finally followed what her late father, Mufti Mohammad Syed had sought to have financial discipline in every government department, including the state legislature. Acting swiftly in that direction, her secretariat has dashed a note to the department concerned to send back the chief accounts officers (CAOs) to both the Houses at the earliest.
The CAOs will supervise and monitor all the financial matters of Assembly and Council independently.
Sources said consequent upon the recurrent reminders in ET about the conspicuous absence of CAOs from the state legislature, the process of deputing them in the two Houses had been set into motion again. Thanks to the initiative of the chief minister who has taken a cognizance of the matter and asked the concerned department to get the things on track as per the rules and regulations followed statewide across all institutions.
Sources said a similar note had been sent to law department, seeking immediate action in the matter. Surprisingly, when two Accounts Officers, who were posted last year in the legislature, were recalled within a short period in a hush hush manner with the authorities concerned giving no specific reason for doing so, the law department had not bothered to look into the matter.
However, with fresh directions from the CM secretariat, things were expected to get on the track. Even as the concerned department was at present busy in conducting budget related exercises, the two officers were likely to be posted anytime after these exercises were over. Most likely, before commencement of the budget session, the two Houses would have new CAOs, sources said.
CAOs or financial advisors deal with all financial matters, including expenditure, auditing and salary component of the organisations or departments they are posted in. This rule was initiated during the tenure of late Mufti Mohammad Syed as head of the state. He always desired to have financial discipline everywhere with specifically trained and experienced officers having thorough knowledge of the financial matters.
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