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Availability of budget data / information through various reports and web portals of a government is considered as one of the strong pillars of budget transparency. Since governments deal with public money, the public has the right to know what governments are doing with their money. Hence, fiscal information should be complete, reliable, comprehensive and timely accessible so that citizens can use this information and participate in the fiscal governance discourse in a meaningful manner.

Enhancing budget transparency and accountability at each levels of government has acquired significant importance at present. This not only helps build confidence of the public on the government’s fiscal operation, but also help in addressing social inequality, poverty and regional imbalances across geographies and sections of populations.

In the framework of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world leaders have committed themselves to follow a transparent and accountable government, particularly in fiscal operations, for time-bound achievements of important goals and milestones.   In light of this, it is pertinent to discuss issues and concerns of budget transparency at the local levels, particularly at the levels of districts and sub-districts. Non-availability of locally relevant budget information or limited access to the information by citizens at the district level and below, the degree of budget transparency decreases substantially.

Availability of budget information for a district can be traced through two sources. These are the transactions that happen through treasuries (either through District Treasuries or Sub-Treasuries), and through District Autonomous Implementing Agencies or Societies.  With respect to fiscal operations through treasuries, as on date, only 10 states (Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh) provide access to treasury information in the public domain.  Through which, one can collate information pertaining to how much is being allocated and spent in a district in a particular financial year. However, with the changing nature of fund flow mechanisms and subsequent reforms in budgetary process in the country, the public has been facing difficulties in getting relevant budget information at the levels of districts and sub-districts.

Further, there are several limitations of treasury operations in the country, notable among these are as under:

First, budget information through district treasury provides a fraction of the total budget spent in a district. The earlier practice of bypassing major CSS funds to the state budgets and hence state treasuries has been done away with since the financial year 2014-15. However, funds under MGNREGS (Labour budget component) and the MPLAD still by-passing state budgets and hence state treasury.  In all other major CSSs, the funds are routed through the state budget and hence through the state treasuries. Subsequently, these CSS funds are transferred to the bank accounts of the state autonomous societies and then bank accounts of district autonomous societies or through DBTs to the beneficiary accounts. As a result, the fund flow in major CSSs at the district level has not been reflected through district treasuries. To get complete budget information of a district, one must collate information reported in scheme MISs (which is again limited to a couple of CSSs) and / or from the State / District Autonomous Societies, implementing development schemes.

Second, access to budget information through treasury web portals of the districts is complicated and only a group of technocrats can access and understand this information.  This limits the usability of budget information provided in the public domain through treasury portals by the common people.

Third, the format in which budget information is provided by district treasuries is different for different districts in the country. There is no uniform structure of putting budget information into the public domain, which can be comparable across districts. Further, the district treasuries’ operations are cumbersome as they follow budget codes, which are not easy to understand for a common citizen.  As the practice of budget accounting (use of coding structures) followed in the country is also not uniform beyond a certain levels (after minor heads-third tiers in a six-tier budget classification as has been adopted since April, 1987) of disaggregation, it is very difficult for the common people to understand these budget codes. Most importantly, budget information for a scheme is only available at the fourth level of budget classification. At this level of budget coding, there is no uniformity across states. Hence, the relevance of the budget data available through district treasuries reduces its usability for the common citizen.

Fourth, the most disaggregated levels of budget information (for instance, facility level institution-wise budget information, i.e.  for Schools and Anganwadi centres) is not provided through district treasuries. Unless budget data is provided at the most disaggregated level, citizens would not be able to engage in planning and prioritisation of budgets and hence make the system accountable.

Fifth, budget information provided through district treasuries are not updated on real time basis. Real time accessibility of budget data through treasury operations can increase effective citizen engagement. But not all 10 states follow this practice (for instance, district treasuries in Maharashtra provide real time budget data, whereas Andhra Pradesh district treasuries  do not, although both the states have provided treasury data accessible and available in the public domain).  Hence, the budget information available in public domain through district treasuries becomes non-relevant and also limits its usefulness.

Sixth, the flow of funds through treasuries for various sectors / departments across various quarters in a financial year is not uniform. In most of the districts, first quarter of a financial year records high amount of budget received and disbursed for various sectors. This raises concern on quality of planning and budgeting at the district level, besides creating doubts on quality of fund utilisation.

Seventh, it is difficult to segregate entire budget flows to the district through treasuries into various sub-district units like sub-divisions,   blocks and talukas.  As the treasuries are following certain administrative norms and funds are apportioned through the Drawing and Disbursement Officers (DDOs), sometimes, most of these DDOs are spending budgets for the entire district. Without any further break up of such budgets for different blocks and talukas, it is difficult to find out how much money is being spent in various blocks under a particular scheme by the DDOs. This restricts assessment of prioritisation in budget distribution across various geographies and sections of population in a district.

Despite a number of limitations pertaining to the comprehensiveness of budget information for a district through treasury, district treasuries have been serving as good source of making budget information available to the public. One hopes that the use of technology would address these concerns for better treasury operations in the coming days.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of CBGA. You can reach Nilachala Acharya at nilachala@cbgaindia.org.