West Bengal employees to get salary under e-payment Scheme

Government of West Bengal

Finance Department

Audit Branch

No. 6261-F(Y)               Kolkata, the 17th June, 2011.

MEMORANDUM

   The Government has already introduced the ‘West Bengal Government’s e- Payment of Salary [ePS] Scheme’ vide Finance Department’s Notification No.8301- F dated 26.08.2009 wherein the detail rules and procedures for payment of salary through electronic mode have been prescribed. Subsequently, Finance Department vide Notification No.8884-F(Y) dated 02.09.2010 in partial modification of the previous Notification, allowed DDOs to draw salary cheques for payment through bank one day prior to the stipulated date of salary payment and again vide Memorandum No.2536-F(Y) dated 31.03.2011 prescribed the procedure for changing the existing salary-linked bank account. Many Offices of the State Government have successfully implemented the scheme of payment of salary through bank.

   Now, it has been decided by the Government that the said scheme shall be implemented in all State Government Offices for all category of employees by September 2011. The matter has been informed to all the Departmental Secretaries vide Letter No.FS-130/2011 dated 8 June, 2011.

   All the head of Offices and their Drawing & Disbursing Officers shall make necessary arrangement for implementation of Part A of the Scheme as mentioned in the Notification No.8301-F dated 26.08.2009 for their regular establishments.

   It has been provided at Part-A, para 1(3) of the said scheme that the Head of office shall, in consultation with the Designated Branch of the bank, arrange to open Savings bank accounts for every employee with zero balance. The bank account may be in the same Branch or other Branch of the same bank or other bank-branch subject to availability of the e-Payment facility [CBS/NEFT], as may be provided by the Designated Bank. The existing bank account of the employees having e-Payment facility may also be used for this purpose. It has been assured by the most of the Public Sector Banks that their Designated Branches shall also provide the facility of crediting the salary account of few employees maintained at other banks through NEFT. For this purpose it is required to obtain the IFSC [Indian Financial System Code] of the bank-branch of the employee. The employees who will opt to receive salary from any bank other than the ‘Designated Bank’ shall apply using the enclosed ‘Declaration Form’.

   The Reserve Bank of India, Kolkata has introduced ‘RECS (Regional Electronic Clearing Service), an upgraded service of ‘ECS’ (Electronic Clearing Service), for payment of salary of State Secretariat. ECS is applicable within the Kolkata clearing zone whereas the ‘RECS is applicable within West Bengal, provided the employee’s bank branch should be under CBS [Core Banking Solutions) and should have a MICR approved by the Reserve Bank of India. Accordingly, the Accounts Officer, West Bengal Secretariat shall arrange for payment of the salary through ‘RECS’ instead of ‘ECS’ at the earliest.

   It has also been provided at Part-A, para 1(3) of the said scheme that the bank account may be operated as ‘Joint’ or ‘Either or Survivor’ but the first name must be the Government employee’s name. It should be noted that in all cases of payment of salary through Bank the name of the employee as mentioned in the Bank Account should be same and identical with the name as mentioned in the Service Book of the employee.

   It is brought to the notice of all the Departments, the Head of Offices and the Drawing & Disbursing Officers that National Informatics Centre [NIC], an organization under Government of India, has developed a software package, namely COSA [Computerization of Salary Account] for generation of salary bills of the State Government Offices through computer. Many State Government Offices are successfully generating their Pay Bills through this Computer package for a long time. Generation of Pay Bills through this ‘COSA' Computer package assure timely submission of correct and error-free bill with proper security measures.

   The Reserve Sank of India, Kolkata, in consultation with other banks, shall finalize uniform format of salary data file which will be acceptable by all the Public Sector Banks for State Government salary payment through bank and accordingly, the NIC shall upgrade their existing COSA software for generating the salary data file in the format to be prescribed by the Reserve Bank of India.

   All the Head of Offices and the Drawing & Disbursing Officers shall introduce COSA software package developed by the NIC for generation of the salary bills of their Offices at the earliest.

Sd/-
(C.M. Bachhawat)
Principal Secretary to the
Government of West Bengal
Finance Department.

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