FinMin makes a pitch for speedy dividend payment by PSUs

To improve government's cash management, the finance ministry wants ministries to take steps to ensure timely payment of dividends and profits by PSUs under their administrative control.
Dividends and profits including the transfer of surplus from RBI are a major component of non-tax revenues.
"The payment of dividends/profits etc by central public sector enterprises should not be delayed and must be paid within an appropriate timeframe immediately after the decision on dividend is taken at the AGM," said the discussion draft on General Financial Rule, 2016.
It further proposed that ministries or departments should monitor timely payments of dividends and profits.

As the government plans to advance presentation of Budget to February 1 and has decided to merge railway budget with the general budget, the draft said "the Demands for Grants and the Statement of Budget Estimates of the Railways will also be part of the General Budget".
Currently, the receipts and expenditure of the Railways being a departmental commercial organisation form part of the government's receipts and expenditure and are included in the Annual Financial Statement.

The draft said all ministries and departments should take prompt measures for migration to e-receipts "to ensure customer convenience and immediate credit of receipts to the government account".

The draft GFR also proposed that Public Financial Management System (PFMS) should be used for sanction preparation, bill processing, payment, receipt management, Direct Benefit Transfer, fund flow management and financial reporting.
"All the ministries sanctioning grant-in-aid shall register all implementing agencies till last level of implementation on PFMS to track fund flow and unspent balances," it said.