status of bills on web site

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irse	status of bills on web site	Lead	[-]
Posts: 124 (02/02/07 20:04:00) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : None A recent circular from cvc want status of bill payments on website of deptt .The target date is 1.4.2007.every day thousands of bill are paid by account offcers for diff deptt in one divisional office in the work contract ,data is generated at diff place ie measurement are entered at work site by IOW , prepared at ADEN HQ ,passed in DEN office ,DFM office & paid at chief cashier /pay office . how these dates will be recorded as all does not have web connectivity .diff staff has to recoed a date after forwarding bill to next desk to know correct status of bill how we are going to achieve it & what should be set up o achieve the desired goal
anil kumar patel	Re: status of bills on web site	#1	[-]
Posts: 61 (02/02/07 21:23:23) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	We should thank to CVC for issuing this circular. There is no other way than to computerise all the process of office working to achieve this information publication. We could'nt do it ourself (computerised processing), now we will be forced to do it by this circular. I am sure that majority of officers are not aware of the status of papers/bills/vouchers in their own offices due to the complexity of paperworks. But once you have this info on hand it would be much more easier to manage cash flow/enforce timely clearance. It will help us in the long run more than helping those whose bills are involved, although it will be very painful to dig this info. in the short run. Prior to this CVC's dictat on tender notice and tender paper publication on net has really helped a lot internally to us. I remember signing cyclostyle sheets of tender papers before that. Once we were forced to make the papers available on net there was no other way than to make the tender paper on word and excell and convert to PDF. Now its so easy to scan through the General and special conditions and ammend them as per requirement of works. This rule is going to bring a change in our working for sure.
ananth	Status of bill payments!	#2	[-]
Posts: 911 (02/02/07 23:07:39) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Sirs, If all the bills are being passed through AFRES, I don't think it will be a big issue for putting the status on the web. But can the engineers and other executives do a similar exercise by putting the status from their side on the web - the date of completion of the work/work order, date of measurement, date of preparation of the bill, date of submission to the divisional office, date of counter-signature of DEN/Sr.DEN etc. The real problem is not of the bills pending in the Accounts office as they get passed within a day or two but the real problem is regarding how many days do they lie unattended in the offices of the executives? Sometimes, it takes two months from the date of preparation of the bill for the contractor to get his payment. All these delays get factored in the rates he quotes for various tenders? Can we do something about this? Ananth Sr.DFM/BSP
irse	status of bill payment	#3	[-]
Posts: 124 (02/03/07 01:34:44) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Dear Anant I am neither blaming nor staing that bills are pending in account office .I think you have slightly missed my point. .It may be possible for finance to put the details on web regading bill payment as their office is fully computerised & all activity are taking at one place ie in Srdfm office at divisional Hq .Internet connectivity is also available at Divisonal Hq However as you have rightly said ,infrastructure is not available in Engg deptt .The bill generate(measurments) at iow office ,scuitnised at Aden office , passed at Den office before sending to finance for scrutiny & passing .payment is done in cash office My point is that none of IOW ( As per my little knowledge) in Indian railways have computer ,if they have then no connectivity to internet .Most of ADEN also donot have connectivity although they have stand alone computer Now in Bill status format minimum 3 columns of dates ie date of measurement ,preparation of bill by aden & passing by Den are to be filled up at diff place which means that all these person should have connectivity & acess password for the document to make entry. As it is CVC circular so we have to do it .There is no option . My purpose of putting this item is here to know how to go about it .whether any software required to monitor movement of bills ,if yes can it be developed in house or out sourced .How to provide connectivity to all field units . whether it is necessary to fill document at 5 diff place or for time being it can be done in division office by creating separate cell in divn office with engg/account represntative Time is short & so all The railways must have started doing some thing .Purpose of this item is to know how we are going to impliment these cvc directive As I write this ,I got information that cvc has called AMV for meeting on 14.2.2007 to acess the progress of implimentation of directive & RB has asked rly to send feed back by 5.2.2007 so all of us can understand seriousness of matter
BP	bill processing	#4	[-]
Posts: 69 (02/06/07 08:27:29) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	indeed a laudable objective that looks like yet another 'train to erewhon'. to get the right performance, u got to measure the right things. in works contracts on ir when the bill is generated by iow, what about the delay in preparing the bill by iow. and if bill preparation is a function of measurement, then what about the delay in making measurements. so, we are going to be lost in data processing exercise like punctuality statistics where there is only one output, 99% of the bills are passed in time.
pankajp	Definition of bill	#5	[-]
Posts: 347 (02/06/07 23:33:01) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	IRSE sir In my opinion, bill becomes eligible for payment only after it has been accepted for payment by bill passing officer and sent to bill paying officer.Before that it is only a claim for payment. So the status required to be put on website is the date when bill is received by the bill passing/paying officers and the date when it is accepted for payment/cleared for payment respectively. Other members may comment.
anil kumar patel	Re: Definition of bill	#6	[-]
Posts: 61 (02/07/07 02:21:14) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	that's an accounts centric definition of bill. In terms of client(a contractor becomes your client for the purpose of bill payment!) as soon as he has requested for an on account/final payment (subject to contractual provisions, quality blah.. blah.. blah..) the bill is due for payment to him. If we follow your definition IOW sahab will sit over a measurement for 2 months and AEN sahab will claim that the bill is not due as he never recieved any bill. We have to own up to action by every one in our system. Bear in mind that on the day of measurement the contractor has incurred expenditure on works being measured and from there untill paid he is waiting for a return on his investment. Honestly after an agreed period we must pay interest on the claim amount. In the private sector where I work a bill is claimed by subcon(we call them subcon as we ourself are contractor) and it becomes due for payment without interest upto 60 days from the date of claim. After that interest rate applies. This is a standard clause used here commonly referred as payment terms=30/60/90 days. 30 days is used for works of smaller values, 60 for normal values and 90 for very high values. This is also negotiated during negotiations. Interest is commonly an agreed rate above/below BLR. If we put this clause in IR there will not be any need for publication of list as contractor's will be happy to wait for payment after due date!
freefall	Re: Definition of bill	#7	[-]
Posts: 185 (02/07/07 04:50:22) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I believe Anil has a point. We have to see that we foster an environment where honest businessman is encouraged to do business with railways. Unfortunately it is always easier to interpret the rules in a way that causes harassment to businessman. Sadly, this approach is even taken as a visible proof of the officers' integrity. In a typical hangover of the raj, we bureaucrats continued to behave as british lords with a divine right to police over native businessman, who cannot be trusted. Decades of subsequent socialist brainwashing only reinforced the belief in the wretchedness of the business and high moral ground of the babus. In the long run this policy has helped only the crooked elements- both in the government and in the business. The only way to make an economy grow is to support businessman and entrepreneur through simpler and business-friendly rules. They are the real wealth creators, not us. The earlier we understood this, the better.
pankajp	Definition of honest businessman	#8	[-]
Posts: 347 (02/08/07 21:26:27) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Freefall sir Is not the term "honest businessman" a contradiction in itself? Let us consider an example of supply and commissioning of electrical fitings in railways premises. Every contractor/supplier purchases these electrical fitings at concessional rate as s/he is purchasing in bulk. However, the offer submitted by him/her to IR is as per prevalent market rate, thus making a neat profit. Now this is known to the TC and TAA also but ......!!!!! So it is not as if businessman are doing a favour to government sector in every transaction
irse	Re: Definition of honest businessman	#9	[-]
Posts: 124 (02/08/07 23:47:02) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I was looking for methodology while we started discussing necessity .Necessity is foregone conclusion as these are directive of CVC & WE ARE LEFT WITH 50 DAYS TIME TO IMPLIMENT IT
Govindu	CC Bill or Final Bill ?	#10	[-]
Posts: 1001 (02/09/07 00:30:45) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Deciding the "date of measurement" is still in the hands of IOW- he is the MAHARAJ of Bills in IR. It will be a huge job if CC bills detailes are to put on WEB and will be just like punctuality charts. Start with Final Bills. Trace the Bill from " Date of Completion of Work". Go in a systematic manner. Every DEN should collect the dates and consolidated for DRM/W and publish. Govindu 1996eb
anil kumar patel	Make it a monthly update	#11	[-]
Posts: 61 (02/09/07 00:59:02) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	To start with we can continue our tender notice page and modify it to include date of award, date of request for first bill & cheque date, Date of second bill & cheque date ..... till final bill. There can be a remarks column for reasons for delay. Few additional columns can be there for say, no. of days taken for payment, etc.. The whole thing can be made on access as a data entry format and converted into excel for querry and result. Sorting facility can be included for members of the public to sort on data date, names, similar works etc. Once a month update with a strict cutoff date can be followed to start with. But ultimate system should be like this: Contractor submits his claim (no MB), Claim is recieved in Railway Office with reciept no. & Date. The document is serially numbered and all details are entered into a custom built software. From then on whereever it goes it can be tracked through the same software. Every person dealing with the document marks it to another after dealing with it. The marked offical gets a elctronic message that how many docs. are waiting for him. As soon as he clears he can tick off his name and assign it to another and the chain will continue till end. A barcode can be used for identification of document electronically. Members of the public can be given relevant access to know about their document if they have the serial no.. Check Passport office tracking software on any website for a sample, or EMS system software on any postoffice site.
freefall	Re: Definition of honest businessman	#12	[-]
Posts: 185 (02/09/07 08:06:15) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	*"Is not the term "honest businessman" a contradiction in itself?"* Yes, it has become largely so and we have to accept our fair share of responsibility for this state of affairs. For decades we have devised such procedures and policies where only crooks survive. This has become a vicious circle and unless we decide to break it somewhere, there is no hope left. "Let us consider an example of supply and commissioning of electrical fitings in railways premises. Every contractor/supplier purchases these electrical fitings at concessional rate as s/he is purchasing in bulk. However, the offer submitted by him/her to IR is as per prevalent market rate, thus making a neat profit. Now this is known to the TC and TAA also but ......!!!!!" Earning a neat profit is the stated legitimate goal of any business. We have no right to grudge it. However if we feel that we are being ripped, we have to introspect why others are not coming in competition to the 'ripper'. The point is not everyone likes to do business with railways -- for that matter with any government department. Given the complexity of our procedures, and our penchant for keeping things confidential, only a specific breed of businessmen survive with us. To be precise, only those survive with us who manage to keep procedures simplified for themselves with the help of obliging officers. Once you make things simple and transparent for everyone, crooks loose their advantage over others. This is the way economy has grown elsewhere and this is the way it will grow in India. *"So it is not as if businessman are doing a favour to government sector in every transaction."* None at all and neither should we expect anyone doing any favour to the other side. It is the enlightened pursuit of self-interest that drives economy. Railway has to be business-friendly not as a favour to the businessman, but only as a favour to itself. It is required of us as a pursuit of pure unadulterated self interest, nothing else. If we can transform ourselves to be a business friendly organization, we will attract a better quality of business and at a cheaper price than the current lot. "But ultimate system should be like this: Contractor submits his claim (no MB), Claim is recieved in Railway Office with reciept no. & Date. The document is serially numbered and all details are entered into a custom built..." This is in fact a historic opportunity in front of us. We can either devise a half baked solution where someone manually updates the bill status or decide to invest in a comprehensive ERP solution that is capable of automatic tracking and updating of bills. All our computerization has so far been directed towards hardware. It is high time we looked at the state of affairs in software. After PRS, we have not made any serious effort to leverage technology for day to day operations.
irse	Re: Definition of honest businessman	#13	[-]
Posts: 124 (02/09/07 21:16:03) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	i fully agree with following remarks of mr freefall .Although i don't know him personally ,i have seen his comments extremely valuable & to the point This is in fact a historic opportunity in front of us. We can either devise a half baked solution where someone manually updates the bill status or decide to invest in a comprehensive ERP solution that is capable of automatic tracking and updating of bills. All our computerization has so far been directed towards hardware. It is high time we looked at the state of affairs in software. After PRS, we have not made any serious effort to leverage technology for day to day operations.-freefall Now we should do .My question is who is this WE Railway Board, zone ,executive ,finance I feel tha it has to be common effort just like PRS & can be entrusted to computerisation & vigillence directorate of the Board Is any body in Board is doing some thing in this direction ?
ananth	Engg & Computerization!	#14	[-]
Posts: 911 (02/09/07 22:25:09) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I think the CVC guideline on the status of bills should be viewed as a good opportunity for the executive departments, more importantly and obviously, the engineering department to make an effort towards computerizing their field offices and networking them with the divisional office. It is also high time that project management packages should be developed and dovetailed with the Internal Check module of AFRES to give a complete picture of passing of contractor bills and the management of projects in general. In SECR, we are in the process of refining the Integrated Project Management System (IPMS), which computerizes the entire process of sanction of works, estimates, recording of measurements, preparation and passing of bills and drawal of completion reports as well. Till that takes place, we are going to take the date of preparation of the bill as the time to benchmark the monitoring of pasing of contractor bills. Even that is sufficient to ensure that the executives look into the time taken to pass the bills in their offices. Ananth Sr.DFM/BSP
BP	u got to work smart	#15	[-]
Posts: 69 (02/10/07 02:15:54) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Ananth kudoes to efforts like IPMS. however, u got to work smart if u want results. ditto for cvc. if the premise is delays in bill passing is a cause of corruption, u have to plug the root cause and bottlenecks. in this case, the root cause is delays in MEASUREMENT by our inspectors. cvc's idea of making the details online will not capture this delay. theerfore, the contractors will continue to suffer or factor the delay in bid price. the analogy of train punctulaity is perfect. sr.dom's think that not running late is perfect, however tis doesnt make the train reach destination at scheduled arrival time. wrong metrics will give u wrong results.
ananth	That's precisely the reason!	#16	[-]
Posts: 911 (02/11/07 22:23:27) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Yes Mr.BP, you have hit the nail. But one can always establish a system of monitoring that as well. If the date of completion of the work order can be monitored, then the delay in measurement can also be similarly monitored. Actually the problem lies in the fact that we set such low benchmarks of efficiency such as the example you mentioned in your last para. Ananth Sr.DFM/BSP
irse	Re: That's precisely the reason!	#17	[-]
Posts: 124 (02/18/07 19:43:57) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	you are right upto some extent The problem of delay can be solved with a simple instruction that at least one on account bill per month is to be paid in each contract .In case no work is done during the month ,nil measurment to be entered & contractor need to be communicated "As no work was done during last one month ,your bill for period is nil" To achieve this IOW HAS TO PLAN THE DATES OF MEASUREMENT & notify the contractor.if he has 10 contract ,he has to stagger the date & inform contractor to be present on that date .so contractor will know when his measurements will be taken I have adopted this system quite sucessfully when I was incharge of a division but these remained individual effort for obious reasons
natarajan1965		#18	[-]
Posts: 3 (03/01/08 20:19:08) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I shall quote a small instance which happened to a CPWI. A particular CPWI in BCT division was interested in computerising the data available with him and uses the facility of internet through P&T telephone connectivty provided to him to send some of his data to his Sr.DEN and for downloading some technical data required for him to update his knowledge from the internet. In his telephone bill there was an megre amount for downloading charges and letter was issued from S&T department to take strict action on the CPWI for misuse. When no action was taken by Sr.DEN, his P&T telephone got cut. If we are so conservative on a system that we do not allow use of technology for a small cost we cannot achieve anything. We need to be more liberal and more powers delegated below in such activities where there can be significant system improvement.. Last Edited By: natarajan1965 03/01/08 20:23:42. Edited 1 times.

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