Para 2.14 — The PAO's primary duty in checking expenditure cla

2.14 GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS ON CLASSIFICATION OF EXPENDITURE 2.14.1 Apart from the general principles, the main duty of the PAO in check of classifications would be to see that the expenditure is classified and recorded under the grant and the sub head under which the provision for expenditure was made in the Budget Estimates.

Note below 2.11.1 shall also be referred classification of expenditure based on object heads defined in Rule 8 of DFPR.

2.14.2 The following principles should be adopted for classifying the expenditure on departmental accounts organisation:

(a) The expenditure on a PAO, which is exclusively dealing with a separate identifiable organisation will be treated as regular expenditure of the organisation without operating separate minor heads for this purpose. For example, expenditure on PAO (Tourism) will be debited to the head '3452-Tourism-Direction and Administration'.

(b) The expenditure on all other PAOs as well as Principal Accounts Offices of all Ministries/Departments including Internal Audit Wings set up under the scheme of Departmentalisation will be classified under the minor head 'Secretariat' below the appropriate Major head viz.,'2052- Secretariat-Services' or '2251-Secretariat-Social and Community Services' or '3451-Secretariat-Economic Services', as the case may be.

2.14.3 Budget provision will also be made according to the principles set forth above. In the case of

(a) above, the provision will be included in the total provision for the organisation. In respect of (b), budget provision will be included in the Secretariat Demands for Grants of the concerned Ministries or Departments.

2.15 GENERAL CHECKS TO BE EXERCISED IN RESPECT OF BILLS SUBMITTED FOR PRE-CHECK.

2.15.1 The following checks will be exercised on all classes of bills:

(i) that bills are prepared in the prescribed form, signatures are genuine and that the bills are in original; that a brief abstract is given in the official language authorised for the purpose under the signature of the drawing officer on all vouchers prepared in any other language; that signatures, if not in the authorised script, are transliterated and that sub-vouchers contain notes of dates of payment;

(ii) that the details work up to the totals and that the totals are in words as well as in figures,

(iii) that they bear a 'pass order' signed by the DDO;

(iv) that there are no erasures, and that any alterations in the total are attested by the officer concerned as many times as they are made;

(v) that no payment is made on a bill or order signed by a subordinate instead of Head of Office himself, or on a voucher or order signed with a stamp, and that copies of sanctions are certified by the sanctioning officer or by an authorised gazetted Government servant;

(vi) in all cases in which it is prescribed, tallying should be carried out between the different documents, that the fact of the matching should be noted on both the documents and the note initialled by Accountant who does the tallying;

(vii) see that, GST/TDS on GST as per GST Rule, 2017, Fund and Income-tax deductions as per IT Act etc have been correctly made;

Note: In respect of the pay bills of his/her own establishment and pension bills paid by him/her after pre-check, the Pay and Accounts Officer acts as the officer responsible for recovering income-tax on the income chargeable under the head 'salaries' and is, therefore, under a statutory obligation to deduct, at the time of payment, income-tax on the amount payable at the rate applicable to the estimated income of the assessee under the head "Salaries". In respect of other bills, the PAO is not responsible for checking the correctness of the Income-tax deductions but whenever such bills come under his scrutiny in the course of audit, he should always see that deductions of income-tax are not omitted in cases where such deductions should clearly be made;

(viii) that no bill for pay or allowances not claimed within two years (vide Rule 295 of GFR, 2017) of its becoming due are admitted without the sanction of the competent authority;

(ix) see that the stores are purchased through the agency of the purchase organisation of the Central Government, viz. GeM, when this is required by the orders of the Government.

(x) that in the case of contingent bills, sub-vouchers as required under the rules are attached as per R&P Rules, 2022;

(xi) that the classification noted in the bill is correct with reference to the nature of the transactions and that an item which should be charged on the CFI is not classified as Voted and vice versa. Classification of object heads should be in line with the revised object heads contained in Rule 8 of DFPR notified by Ministry of Finance in Delegation of Financial Power (Amendment) Rules,2022 on 16.12.2022.

(xii) that Bank account details match with the bank mandate form submitted along with the bills.

(xiii) that clear copy of original invoice/bill and other relevant supporting documents are uploaded along with e-claim in the case of e-bill for payment.

2.15.2 DoPT vide their OM No.18/3/2015-Estt.(Pa-I) dated 2.3.2016 had issued advisory to Ministries/Departments to deal with the issue of wrongful/excess payments made to Government servants in accordance with decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in their Order dated 18.12.2014. As per the said DoPT OM dated 2.3.2016, wherever the waiver of recovery in the situations of hardship as summarised in the aforesaid Supreme Court Order is considered by Ministries/Departments, the same may be allowed with the express approval of Department of Expenditure. The instructions before referring the proposals involving waiver of recovery of excess payment to DoE are contained in their OM No.09(20)/2023-E.II(A) dated 1.6.2023.

2.16 ESSENTIAL CHECK The following essential checks will be exercised in respect of the various categories of bills. These checks are only illustrative and not exhaustive.

What This Means

This explanation was generated with AI assistance for educational purposes. Always refer to the official gazette notification for authoritative text.

Key Points

• 1PAO must ensure expenditure is classified under the grant and sub-head where budget provision exists
• 2PAO office expenditure is classified under a specific sub-head within the Ministry's demand
• 3Classification follows both general principles and object heads defined in Rule 8 of DFPR
• 4Shared costs of accounting organizations may be apportioned across Ministries
• 5Correct classification is essential for meaningful appropriation audit and budget monitoring

Practical Example

This explanation was generated with AI assistance for educational purposes. Always refer to the official gazette notification for authoritative text.

Cross References

Frequently Asked Questions

This explanation was generated with AI assistance for educational purposes. Always refer to the official gazette notification for authoritative text.