Jammu, Nov 19:
The Finance Department today formally set into motion the process for preparation of the State Budget 2019-20 by holding the first intra-departmental consultation regarding resource mobilization. Principal Secretary Finance, Navin K Choudhary chaired a high-level meeting with the senior officers of the Finance Department at Civil Secretariat here this afternoon in this regard. Commissioner, State Taxes Department, M Raju, Commissioner Excise, Talat Parvez, Director General Funds Organization, J&K, K K Gupta, Director Finance (Budget), Imtiyaz Ahmad, Additional Commissioner, State Taxes Department, P K Bhat, Additional Commissioner, State Taxes Department Jammu, Shahid Saleem and other senior officers of various wings of the Finance Department were present at the meeting. This was the first meeting of a series of intra and inter-departmental pre-budget consultations to be convened by the Principal Secretary Finance to finalize the budget proposals for the next fiscal. The entire exercise of department-wise pre-budget consultations is likely to be completed by the end of next month. Navin took a holistic review of the revenue realization targets achieved for the current financial year and the estimates for the next fiscal. He called for putting in place a comprehensive mechanism to prevent misuse of tax exemptions and incentives to the disadvantage of the State. Navin said the endeavor of the Governor’s Administration is to facilitate industrial activity, businesses and trade and boost local production to prevent draining out of resources. He said the Finance Department has already advanced the budget presentation to January to streamline the public expenditure, ensuring effective management of resources and timely completion of the developmental projects. Navin said the Department has also put various expenditure reforms in place including adoption of Budget Estimation Allocation Management System (BEAMS) to minimize human interface in the allocation of resources. He said BEAMS has also helped in bringing better cash management, financial reporting and monitoring system and eliminated misclassification by minimizing human errors.
