15 - PAY BILLS ON COMPUTER
Pay bills and its accompaniments are now processed in computer for payment in majority of the establishments in Railways.
In the beginning all the employees are allotted a staff number in 8 digits including a self-checking digit. This number should not be changed during the service and it remains as staff identification number in all records.
When a new bill unit is brought under computerised pay roll, master data of all employees of the bill units is prepared as at the end of the previous month, and the data is put on master tape.
The bill-preparing units in the prescribed formats indicate changes in the current month in respect of all bill units under computer pay roll system. The input properly prepared in the required format is key punched and the data is edited on the computer.
Error records and control figures are prepared for verification. After all the errors are removed and controls tallied, the input data is processed on computer to generate the pay bills and other connected statements.
The pay rolls are prepared in three copies and the first copy is submitted to accounts and it becomes paid voucher later. The second copy is retained as office copy by the bill preparing unit and the third copy is distributed as pay slip to the employees.
The bill preparing units check up whether the changes given have been correctly incorporated for printing. In case of any discrepancy, necessary manual changes are made in the printed pay rolls and are attested by officer in charge before forwarding the same to accounts department. These alterations are also taken as corrections to the computer files.
The bill preparing units are responsible for the correct preparation of input data after taking into account all relevant informations regarding entitlement to pay and allowances of the employees concerned. They are also responsible to see that changes advised by them for the month have been duly incorporated in the computer pay roll.
Calculations including totals need to be checked by them.
The pay roll mechanisation cell and the computer cell have combined responsibility to ensure that the input data given by the bill-preparing units have been correctly converted into computer files and is duly processed along with the master data for preparation of pay rolls and connected statements. Computer bills are verified through the internal check in Accounts office as done for manual bills.
Where preparation of pay bills on the computer has been found impossible due to unavoidable reasons the pay bill should be prepared manually in the prescribed form separately for Gazetted and Non-gazetted staff by the pay bills preparing units and sent along with relevant documents and statements, to the accounts office for internal check and payment.
The following statements are prepared as accompaniment to the pay rolls.
· Debit summary.
· Credit summary.
· Memorandum of differences.
· Statement of PF recovery.
· Absentee statement.
· Statement of refund of advances, advance wise.
· Statement of society deposits and refund of loans.
· Rent recovery statement.
· Electricity charges statement.
· Statement of other recoveries, type wise.
· PF subscriptions and repayment of advances to PF.
· List of workshop debits, stores debits and station debits.
· Recoveries toward Co-operative Stores and Society.
· Subscription to Institutes.
· Railway doctor fee payable on contract system.
· Diet charges.
· LIC policies.
· Income-tax schedule.
· Group Insurance recovery statement.
· Certificates required for the purpose of claiming certain allowances.
Memorandum of Differences
It is a statement, which briefly explains the causes of differences between the gross amount of pay charged in the current month and that of last month’s pay bill in respect of each employee.
Absentee Statement
Absentee statement shows the period of leave, unauthorised absence for all the employees. CL availed is not shown in the statement.
Wage Period
Wage period is normally a month. Different wage periods are fixed for Railway employees working at different areas. By fixing different wage periods, constant flow of bills, regular internal check of all the bills, better utilisation of ministerial and cash office staff are achieved. Normally change of wage period is not normally permitted.
However, in rare cases to arrange salary in advance due to festivals etc. wage period is changed with permission of Headquarters and Accounts concurrence.
Assumed Attendance
Pay bills are actually prepared a few days before the end of the wage period, on the basis of assumed attendance for the remaining days of wage period. The period of assumed attendance is fixed in consultation with Accounts. In the event of an employee’s death or termination of service the bills are not processed for regular payment as a matter of precaution to adjust recoveries, if any.
Last Pay Certificate
When a Railway servant is transferred from one jurisdiction to another, or in settlement cases, LPC is prepared in the prescribed form and sent to the Accounts office concerned. LPC shows the pay and allowances drawn in the last month up to which the employee has been paid. It also includes details of recoveries effected, the recoveries to be effected, balance instalments, occupation of quarters, arrears to be claimed, as
drawn particulars, PF number etc. LPC facilitates prompt drawl of wages in the absence of service records.
Objections
Prompt attention is to be given to the objections communicated by the Accounts or Audit officer. All objections related to personal claims raised by the Accounts officer or by the Audit department, whether accepted or not, should be immediately communicated to the employee’s concerned, so that the question of writing off of the amounts on the ground that they are more than one year old may not arise, and in case if it is eventually decided that the objections are correct and the amount disallowed are to be recovered.
All disallowances or objectionable items noticed in establishment claims are communicated through disallowance list in the prescribed form. Disallowances may be due to-
· Want of sanctioned estimates.
· Excess over sanctioned estimates.
· Want of sanction for appropriations.
· Excess over sanctioned appropriations.
· Irregular personal claims.
· Absence of vouchers.
· Breach of financial rules.
· Acceptance of provisional allocation for estimate.
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