Indian Civil Accounts Service

Profile of the

VISION

MISSION

As a professional accounting organization, our

vision is to strengthen governance through

excellence in public financial management.

Administer an effective, credible and

responsive system for budgeting, payment

and accounting.

Provide a world class, robust government-

wide integrated financial information system.

Develop new paradigms of internal audit for

improved transparency and accountability.

Leverage information and communication

technology to achieve intended goals.

Promote professional integrity through a

dedicated workforce committed to service

ethos.

Profile of the

Indian Civil Accounts Service

2011

Indian Civil Accounts Organisation performs a key role in delivery

of financial management services for the Government of India.

The organisation provides payment services, supports the tax

collection system, performs government-wide accounting,

financial reporting functions and carries out internal audit in

civil ministries of the Union Government. Controller General of

Accounts (CGA) in Ministry of Finance heads the organisation and

is responsible for administering this system.

The organisation has been at the forefront in leveraging

information technology for delivery of these services in

consonance with the constantly changing technological

environment and increasing ICT penetration in the country. The

goal is to provide reliable information that brings transparency

in the use and reporting of public funds through an integrated

government-wide financial information system. Accordingly

the focus has been on providing client oriented, integrated

applications that aim at achieving operational efficiency across

streams of public financial management system.

Mandate

Controller General of Accounts derives his mandate from Article

150 of the Constitution. This statutory mandate as incorporated

in the Allocation of Business Rules brings out the duties and

responsibilities of CGA which includes the following:

• Prescribe general principles, systems and form of Government

accounts relating to the Union and States

• Frame and revise procedures, rules and manuals for

accounting of receipts and payments.

• Oversee maintenance of adequate standards of accounting

in Civil Ministries.

• Prepare monthly and annual accounts along with periodic

reviews of expenditure, revenues, borrowings and deficit.

• Monitor and reconcile cash balances of the Union Government

with Reserve Bank of India and oversee the banking

arrangements for government transactions.

• Coordinate and assist introduction of management accounting

system in Civil Ministries

• Develop and implement policies and programs for

augmentation of human resources in line with the changing

needs of the organisation.

Organisational Structure

Indian Civil Accounts Organisation is headed by Controller General

of Accounts (CGA) in the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of

Finance. CGA as the central accounting and reporting agency

for Government of India is assisted by officers of the Indian

Civil Accounts Service who have expertise in different aspects

of public financial management. This accounts service, which is

a part of the premier civil services currently, has a sanctioned

strength of 226 officers who are supported by around 9,000

employees professionally qualified in government accounting

system.

As per the departmentalized accounting arrangements in

government, operational responsibility for accounting, reporting

and internal audit function in civil ministries is with the officers

of this organisation. These units are headed by the Principal

Chief Controller of Accounts (Pr.CCA), Chief Controller of

Accounts (CCA) or a Controller of Accounts (CA) in the respective

ministries. Under the overall supervision of CGA, they assist the

Secretary of the Ministry who is the chief accounting authority in

the ministry. The Pr. CCAs / CCAs / CAs discharge their duties and

responsibilities through the Principal Accounts Office (Pr. AO) at

Ministry’s headquarters and Pay & Accounts Offices (PAOs) at the

field formation level. There are currently 358 PAOs located at 87

stations across the country.

Duties and Responsibilities

Principles, forms and standards of accounting

On behalf of the President of India, CGA lays down the principles

of government accounting, prescribes the form in which

accounts are to be maintained and formulates the procedure

for recording and consolidating the accounts of Union and State

Governments with the objective of encouraging standardization

and transparency in government accounts.

Receipts and Payments

Indian Civil Accounts Organisation administers the receipts and

payment functions for more than 90% Government of India’s

budget through a nation-wide network of 28,000 branches of

twenty-nine scheduled commercial banks who act as agents

of Reserve Bank of India, which is the banker to the Union

Government.

The organisation performs accounting and reporting functions

for the entire tax and non-tax receipts of the Union Government.

It has accordingly developed and implemented policies to

ensure timeliness and accuracy in remittance and reporting of

government receipts, from its initial deposit to its final credit

in the government account. As part of the country’s on-line

tax information network, the organisation promotes electronic

reporting and collection of direct and indirect taxes. The

system relies on single source data entry for tax payment at

the collecting bank branch, a national database of tax payers

and electronic transfer of funds to government account. The

accounting units of the organisation, through their customized

IT applications, use this information for accounting, reporting

and reconciliation purposes.

In addition, the organisation is responsible for payment functions

in civil ministries. The exchequer control is exercised through the

field level Pay and Account Offices (PAO) of different ministries

who ensure compliance to budgetary appropriations made by the

parliament. Payment, accounting and reporting functions in civil

ministries have been e-enabled by the organization through the

Computerised Accounting System (COMPACT). This application

covers the entire business process of PAOs including receipts,

provident fund and pension processing. It provides financial

integrity to the process and has the necessary quality and security

certification. COMPACT has been successfully implemented in

over 400 Pay and Accounts Offices (PAOs) of Civil and some non-

Civil Ministries of the Government of India. In addition, it is also

being used by some sub-national governments.

Pension

The organisation is responsible for disbursement and accounting

of pension payments to Government employees of all Civil

Ministries as well as former Presidents/Vice-Presidents, retired

Supreme Court/High Court Judges, Members of Parliament, All

India Service Officers and Freedom Fighters.

The Central Pension Accounting Office (CPAO) was established

with the objective of enhancing service delivery for pensioners

through simplification and standardization of the pension

disbursement process. It is the central budgeting and accounting

unit for civil pensions providing a single point interface between

the government, banks and pensioners. The pension payments as

processed and authorized by the pay and accounting units across

Ministries are channelized through this central office for onward

transmission to the concerned bank branch for disbursement to

pensioners. CPAO currently serves 900,000 pensioners across the

country through a payment network of 40,000 bank branches.

The CPAO strives to streamline pension disbursement, ensure

timely credit of pension payment, arrears of pension/dearness

relief and address the grievances of these pensioners.

CPAO has been able to leverage information technology and recent

developments in the banking environment to institute a pension

payment system that is accurate, efficient and transparent. The

monitoring, tracking and processing of pension cases have been

e-enabled and the CPAO website http://cpao.nic.in/ hosts these

G2C and G2G interfaces. An e-Revision initiative has recently

been rolled out in civil ministries for the expeditious periodic

revision of pension cases and is expected to provide relief to

500,000 pensioners.

CPAO remains committed to a seamless integration of the

business process flow for pension payment to maximize pensioner

convenience and satisfaction.

Accounting and Financial Reporting

CGA as head of the organisation is responsible for operating and

overseeing the government’s central accounting and reporting

system. The office of CGA has instituted a credible financial

reporting system that is critical for enhancing transparency and

accountability in the management of public resources and is

consistent with the statutory obligations on financial reporting

and proactive disclosure.

CGA consolidates the monthly and annual accounts of the Union

Government on the basis of accounts submitted by Ministries and

Departments. Annual accounts are consolidated on a provisional

basis within two months of the close of the financial year for

managerial purposes. The annual audited accounts comprising of

the Appropriation Accounts and Finance Accounts are prepared

and published by CGA and are submitted to the Parliament

within nine months of the close of the financial year. In addition

a meaningful analysis of the annual accounts is prepared

in the form of a document “Accounts at a Glance” for wider

dissemination.

CGA also prepares a monthly review of Union Government’s

receipts and expenditure analyzing key fiscal performance

indicators for submission to the Finance Minister. These reviews

have been widely appreciated for their scope and content.

Financial reports prepared by CGA are available in the public

domain through CGA’s website www.cga.gov.in as per the IMF’s

Special Data Dissemination Standards and are used by the

private and public sector to monitor the government’s financial

status. Similar reports are prepared for individual ministries by

the Pr.CCAs / CCAs /CAs and placed on the website of respective

ministries. In addition they also prepare customized financial

reports for ministries as per their strategic requirements on

internal debt, loans and grants to sub-national governments.

The organisation has developed a web-based integrated system

for accounting and reporting purposes that has received

national and international recognition. E-Lekha is the Core

Financial Information System for Government of India that has

been operational since 2005. It is built around the COMPACT

application running at PAOs of the civil ministries and other

stand alone systems of Ministries of Defense, Posts, Railways

and Telecommunications and other offline interfaces. The

system provides for the integration of daily, monthly and annual

accounting processes for real time value added reporting and

financial monitoring for the Union Government.

Central Plan Scheme Monitoring System

The Central Plan Scheme Monitoring System (CPSMS) is one of

the recent initiatives of this organisation and CGA is responsible

for its design and implementation. CPSMS has been envisaged

as a comprehensive expenditure tracking system for central

plans schemes that, apart from enhancing transparency and

accountability, will have far reaching implications for public

financial management in the country. The Scheme aims at

establishing an integrated financial information system for over

1000 plan schemes being administered by different ministries of

the central government. It involves bringing together thousands

of sub-national, local implementing agencies, individual

beneficiaries and bank branches that have till now, not been

amenable to a central monitoring system.

The organisation has been able to leverage its core capability and

experience in developing a web-enabled application that enables

single point registration of implementing agencies, monitoring

of fund flow from the central government to the implementing

agencies, reconciliation with accounting data and generation of

customized reports for the program managers on sources and use

of funds. The process of implementation has been completed at

the Union government level and the application is able to report

on disbursements to regional and local governments under

individual plan schemes on a real time basis. These reports are

now available on the CPSMS website http://cpsms.nic.in and

have been widely appreciated by the program managers.

The scope of CPSMS is being extended, technical feasibility

studies have been carried out to understand the fund flow up

to the grass root level and expenditure reporting has been

introduced for selected schemes. CPSMS and Core Banking

System interface has also been developed for interchange of

data and is progressively being deployed for agency banks to

enable tracking of plan funds on a real time basis.

Internal Audit

The organisation is responsible for monitoring of financial

performance and effectiveness of various programs, schemes

and activities of the civil ministries through its Internal Audit

Units in the respective ministries.

The Centre of Excellence for Internal Audit in the office of CGA has

evolved as a resource centre and advises the internal audit wings

of line Ministries on different aspects of risk and performance

based audit. Accordingly it has developed a risk based control

framework as a guide for internal audit in ministries. Its capacity

building program focuses on dissemination of audit tools and

techniques within the organisation.

The CGA office also has a Quality Assurance Wing that is entrusted

with the responsibility of developing and reviewing service

delivery standards for accounting units of the ministries. The

wing is also responsible for the implementation of ‘Sevottam’,

Government of India’s flagship quality management framework

for delivery of citizen-centric services, within the organisation.

Human Resource Management

Personnel

The organisation has a qualified, experienced and committed

work force that has set high performance standards in their

field. Their expertise which runs across different aspects of

public financial management has been widely acknowledged by

the government.

Officers of the organisation have diverse public sector

experience having served the central, sub-national governments,

autonomous bodies and government corporations. In addition the

organisation has been regularly deputing officers on assignments

with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and United

Nations organisations. Several of our officers have served these

international organisations in Africa, Asia, Europe and North

America. These officers have been involved with budget process,

cash management, treasury operations, internal audit and

setting up of information management systems in post-conflict

and developing countries.

CGA manages the pool of officers of Indian Civil Accounts Service

(ICAS) and the entire accounts personnel working in the civil

ministries and is responsible for the human resource management

for the organisation. This includes their recruitment, transfers,

promotions and capacity building. CGA through its regular skill

augmentation programs and specially designed examination

system has been actively engaged with professional development

of its work force.

Capacity development

The organisation is committed to developing a well trained,

high performing and diversified workforce that effectively

meets its changing requirements and priorities. The Institute of

Government Accounts and Finance (INGAF) as the training arm

of CGA specializes in professional training in modern, technology

enabled government accounting and financial systems and

provides a window to the world of best learning practices. Its

diversified curriculum focuses on cutting edge capacity building

in a gamut of areas relating to public policy and financial

management – producing transformative and empowering

outcomes.

INGAF (www.ingaf.in) manages a comprehensive capacity

building program for employees of the organisation at all

levels. It conducts training at the entry level and mid-career

programs in specific job skill areas for middle and senior

management reaching out to more than 7,000 participants

every year. Its programs are academically rigorous, designed to

catalyze change and stimulate active peer learning. The core

learning programs of INGAF focus on diverse areas of public

policy, financial management, government accounting, cash and

treasury management, fiscal and budgetary reforms, pension

and pensionary reforms, internal audit, procurement, project

management, administrative procedures, leadership and change

management – using interactive multimedia and advanced IT

tools.

The institute also conducts training to upgrade the operational

skills of personnel of central and state government departments,

public sector undertakings and banks extending its outreach to

areas as remote as the North East, Lakshadweep and Andaman

& Nicobar Islands.

INGAF’s main campus located in the heart of the national capital

of Delhi, is picturesque and bright, and offers a stimulating

environment with its state-of-the-art learning facilities. In

addition to its regional centers at Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai

INGAF has also opened another centre at Aizawl, Mizoram to meet

the public financial management and information technology

related requirements of the entire north-eastern region.

International Cooperation

The Indian Civil Accounts Organisation has played a crucial role

in promoting regional and international cooperation on emergent

issues relating to financial management in the public sector.

The Association of Government Accounts Organisation of Asia

(AGAOA) was formed in 2004. India is one of the founding

members of AGAOA along with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives,

Myanmar, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. As a regional organisation

of accounting bodies, AGAOA (www.agaoa.org) promotes

professional understanding and technical cooperation among

member institutions through exchange of ideas and experiences

to ensure transparency, accountability and good governance.

The annual AGAOA assembly and its experience sharing programs

provide an ideal platform for meeting these objectives. The

Association also has a public policy journal that was launched

in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2010. INGAF serves as the secretariat of

AGAOA and has been designated as one of the regional Resource &

Training Center for its member countries. It is the implementing

agency for the IDF Grant received by AGAOA for development

of a framework for internal control, internal audit and related

capacity development.

CGA is also closely associated with the International Consortium

on Government Financial Management (ICGFM) and has been

part of its Board of Directors.

In addition CGA, through INGAF, executes programs as part

of Government of India’s commitment to international

development cooperation and capacity building in developing

and neighbouring SAARC countries. These capacity development

programs are organised as part of the Indian Technical and

Economic Cooperation (ITEC) and Special Commonwealth

Assistance for Africa (SCAAP) of Ministry of External Affairs and

other bilateral / multilateral programs. INGAF’s international,

multi-cultural environment and global perspectives on a gamut

of issues related to public financial management, internal audit,

leadership and change management have attracted participation

from more than hundred member countries.

INGAFs’ international footprint extends to countries in Asia,

Africa, East Europe (including former USSR), Central and Latin

America, Caribbean and Pacific regions.

E-governance initiatives

The organisation has designed and implemented IT based

solutions for accounting and reporting requirements of Union

Government. It has also developed customized applications as

per the specific functional requirements of the line ministries.

The notable ones are:

• COMPACT: transaction processing application that covers the

entire business process for pay and accounting units.

• E-Lekha: comprehensive government-wide financial

information system for real time reporting

• CPSMS: integrated financial information system for central

plan schemes

• IMAS (Integrated Mission Accounting Software) for embassies

and missions under Ministry of External Affairs

• Revenue Accounting Management Software (RAMS) for

accounting and reporting of direct tax collections.

• Electronic Accounting System in Central Excise and Service

Tax (EASIEST) and Electronic Accounting Solution for

e-Receipts (EASeR) for accounting and reporting of indirect

taxes.

• Pension Authorization Retrieval Accounting System (PARAS)

for central processing of post-retirement social security

payments for government employees

• Internal Debt Monitoring Software (IDMS) and an application

for monitoring of Loans, Grants and Investments (LGI) for

Ministry of Finance.

Future Initiatives

• Electronic payment system: pilot has been successfully

completed in the Ministry of Agriculture, roll out is planned

in other ministries after necessary functional and security

certification has been obtained.

• MPLS VPN: intra-CGA network currently underway for over

400 PAO, 50 Principal Accounts Offices of Civil Ministries and

National Data Centre at Hyderabad.

• E-Samarth: extension of the web-based utility for management

of General Provident Fund Account of government employees

running successfully in Ministry of Home Affairs.

Recognition

E-Lekha & COMPACT

• Best IT Implementation of the year 2007 by PCQuest

Magazine, India

• Silver Icon Award, 2008, National e-Governance Award, Delhi

• Government Technology Awards 2009, FutureGov, Singapore

CPSMS

• Microsoft Developer Innovation & Excellence Award 2009,

New York

• G2G Award, eGov, Hyderabad

Significant Achievements

Payment Services: effective and efficient

electronic systems that deliver dependable

and accurate payment services. This has

significantly reduced transaction costs and

processing times of payments for vendors and

government employees including their post-

retirement social security payments.

Tax collection: monitoring system that has

enabled comprehensive tracking, reliable

reporting of tax payments and has eliminated

delays in remittance of taxes to government

accounts.

Accounting: significant reduction in the

timelines for preparation and submission of

daily, monthly and annual accounts for the

Union Government.

Reporting: comprehensive government-wide

financial reporting systems that provide

credible and timely information for decision

making in government.

Disclosure: promoting transparency and hence

accountability in the management of public

funds, that goes well beyond the statutory

Profile of the

Indian Civil

Controller General of Accounts

Department of Expenditure

Ministry of Finance

Government of India

‘C’ Wing, 7 Floor, Lok Nayak Bhawan

New Delhi - 110003

CGA’s Secretariat Phone # 011-24617758