THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: State government’s digitisation programme is set to reach a milestone with the electronic submission of salary bills and pension book. While the e-pension book will come into effect in the New Year, the e-submission of salary bills would be implemented in all departments by March, 2019.
Finance Secretary Manoj Joshi said switching to electronic platform will ease procedures considerably.
“At present, it takes at least six months for the verification and authorisation of pension claims at the AG’s office. With the e-pension book, the procedures will be completed in a few weeks,” he told Express.
The pilot phase was a success. “Drawing and disbursing officers (DDOs) in 10 government departments are submitting e-bills now. Ten more will join the scheme this week. For the first few months, physical submission of bills will continue,” he said.
The Finance Department expects to complete the switch by March when the salary bills of 4.83 lakh employees would have been submitted in the new format. All DDOs will be given digital signature with OTP-based authentication using the the support of National Securities Depository Limited by January, 2019.
“Within a month transfers, charge handover, leave marking, PF loan application will all be made through SPARK software. The time delay for the processing of the pay-in slip of employees after a transfer or promotion would come down from the present 3-4 weeks to just one week by March,” Joshi said.
“Kerala will become the first Indian state to achieve total digitisation of employees’ service-related procedures,” he added.