Finance Minister launches e-Bill system to enable paperless submission of bills/claims - (02 Mar 2022)

Civil

The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs launched the e-Bill system for Central Government Ministries. Finance Ministry has enabled the new e-Bill system to enable paperless submission, end to end digital processing of bills with boosting ease of doing business. The system aims to provide convenience to all vendors/suppliers of the government to submit their bills/claims at anytime, from anywhere, eliminate physical interface, enhance efficiency in processing and reduce discretion in processing of bills through First-In-First-Out (FIFO) method.

In a phased manner, the new system will make the entire process of submission and backend processing of bills completely paperless and transparent. Thus, it is a major step forward in realizing the vision of “Digital India” and promoting ease of doing business. Currently, the suppliers of various goods and services to the Government have to submit physical, ink signed copies of their bills to the respective Ministries/Departments/offices of the Government of India. Similarly, the government employees also need to submit hard copies of their claims.

Under the newly launched e-Bill system, vendors/suppliers can upload their bills online along with supporting documents from the convenience of their homes/offices at any time through digital signature. For those not having a digital signature, the facility of e-sign using Aadhaar has also been provided. So, the suppliers will no longer be required to visit the offices concerned for this purpose. At the backend too, the electronic bill received will be processed by the authorities digitally at every stage and finally, the payments will be credited digitally to the bank account of the vendor. The vendor/supplier would be able to track the status of processing of their bills online.

The e-Bill system has been developed by the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) Division in the office of the Controller General of Accounts in the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance. The bills will be processed by First-In-First-Out (FIFO) method. In addition to promoting ease of doing business and brining convenience to lakhs of vendors/suppliers, the e-Bill system will be environment friendly, eliminating the need to submit crores of paper bills annually and will thus save tonnes of papers every year. The e-Bill system has an elaborate digital storage facility for retrieval of documents and a robust audit trail.

Tags : E-BILL SYSTEM PAPERLESS SUBMISSION LAUNCH