Karnataka govt moves to operate treasury system on its own

The Basavaraj Bommai-led finance department has roped in a consultant from accounting firm Grant Thornton to help the government develop in-house, glitch-free capacity to run Khajane-2, the flagship software that forms the backbone of the treasury.

Running Khajane-2 on its own will determine the government’s efficiency in spending, including payment of salaries.

At present, Khajane-2 is run by IT major TCS that built the system for the government.

Khajane-2, an integrated financial management system, handles the government’s money. It also gives real-time information on receipts, fund releases and expenditure.

Grant Thornton will deploy consultant Vijay Krishnan who will handhold authorities to take over the system. He will get a monthly paycheck of Rs 2.22 lakh for his expertise, according to a notification.

This is the latest in a series of hires the government has done during the rollout of Khajane-2, which reportedly suffered from glitches that affected disbursal of funds.

A senior official said the system is now capable of being run by internal staffers.

It was in 2013 that the government inked a six-year deal with TCS to establish Khajane-2 for automation in treasury and finance functions. It replaced Khajane-1 that was in use since 2001.

"The migration process of moving from Khajane-1 to Khajane-2 started four years ago," the official said, adding that several departments were laggards in switching to the new system. "Last year, there was a final push. Now, all departments are on board and every payment happens through Khajane-2," the official explained.

"TCS is still involved as of now, but we are building in-house capacity so that the system will be run on a sustainable basis by our own people. It’s always good that way because nobody else understands the system better," the official said.

The department earlier used consultancy services from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). "We are now diversifying our resources," Commissioner of Treasuries Ujjwal Kumar Ghosh said.