PRIASoft: Ball is in Centres court

BHUBANESWAR: Reiterating its commitment to implement the model accounting system (MAS) as prescribed by the Centre, the State Government said it would be possible if the Centre addresses the shortcomings in the Panchayati Raj Institutions Accounts Monitoring Software (PRIASoft).  Even as the Centre has requested all states to implement the model accounting system __ PRIASoft __ within a time frame to bring in transparency in the execution of all anti-poverty programmes, the software provided to the states is having many deficiencies. Pointing out the shortcomings in the existing software, Panchayati Raj Secretary P K Jena in an earlier communique to the Ministry of Panchayati Raj said generation of scheme-wise daybook, cashbook, consolidated cashbook in a desired format, trial balance and ledger report, receipt statement, income and expenditure report and balance-sheet is not possible. The other major problems faced by the State in the software include non-availability of balance-sheet and income and expenditure reports. Besides, the software runs very slow in comparison to the earlier version PAMIS (Project accounting and monitoring information system).   Highlighting the measures taken by the Government to usher in e-Governance to bring in transparency, Jena in a recent letter to Union Panchayati Raj Secretary Kiran Dhingra said PRIASoft needed to be made user-friendly. ‘’Odisha is regularly providing feedback to the NIC PRIASoft team for modification and smooth implementation of the software,’’ Jena said adding, the software must ensure all accounting support before migrating to the MAS. The Union Secretary during her recent visit to two gram panchayats of Ganjam district saw the State Government’s preparedness to carry forward the e-Governance initiatives of the Centre.  The Centre awarded the State a cash prize of ` 50 lakh for its e-Governance initiative for monitoring utilisation of funds at the panchayat level.  The State introduced PAMIS, developed by XIMB here, for maintaining accounts at panchayat samiti and zilla parishad levels. After detecting some shortcomings in PAMIS, PRIASoft was introduced.