Punjab axes outdated practice of officials' financial powers

Describing it as a "revolutionary step", Punjab on Monday announced that it was doing away with the outdated practice of allocating Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDO) powers freshly for every financial year or freshly to every new officer transferred to a post.

The state government has now come out with a composite system of allocating DDO powers only to the posts and not to the individuals, a government spokesman said on Monday.

"Initiating a major governance reforms step, it has now been decided that DDO powers would be vested with a sanctioned post and not with the individual on that post and there would not be any requirement of seeking DDO powers freshly from the finance department every time a new individual joins that post," the spokesman said.

Earlier, fresh sanction had to be taken annually and also when a new officer joined a DDO post. A DDO is there in every government department and deals with all financial matters, especially related to salaries.

"It was felt by the government that salaries of employees usually get delayed waiting for DDO powers immediately after commencement of the new financial year, causing hardships to the employees," he said.