Chandigarh, August 17: In an effort to bring accountability and transparency in the functioning of local bodies, the Punjab government, for the first time, is going to introduce the double entry system of accounting. Local Bodies Minister Manoranjan Kalia, while telling The Indian Express about this decision, said it will help in proper monitoring of funds. Reiterating the government stand to check corruption at all levels, Kalia said the single entry system of accounting being used by the government is not foolproof and the double entry system of accounting is the best.

In the new system, each page is divided into two halves. The left hand side of each page is called the debit side, while the right hand side is called the credit side. When recording a transaction, each item record should also include a date when the transaction took place. “Our basic idea is to make the system more accountable and to ensure that public money involved in various projects is not pilfered. With the introduction of the new system, we can ensure more accountability and transparency in the system,’’ the Minister told The Indian Express, after a workshop on urban governance at CRRID, Chandigarh.

Kalia said that after finding that assessment of property tax has become a source of corruption, the government has finally decided to check the discretion of officials by allowing people to assess their own properties.

“Earlier officials had the discretion of assessing the house tax or property tax bases on annual rental value. There used to be a huge variation in the assessment of tax in the same locality. Now we have decided that people will be allowed the self assessment of their properties, for which the modalities are being worked out,” he said.

He said the government is also going to computerise the entire system of local governance to bring more transparency and efficiency. Stressing on the need to have special programmes for officials on ethical values, he said special classes or lectures on ethics were needed. He added that the local bodies department is a public dealing department and those working here should remember that they are not officers, but servants of the people.

D.S. Bains, Principal Secretary, Local Self Government, Punjab, said Rs 2,306 crore will be spent under the urban infrastructure development scheme to provide infrastructure to all towns and cities. He said the project reports of 13 towns and cities of Bathinda, Pathankot, Jalandhar, Zirakpur, Rajpura, Faridkot, Ferozepur and Dera Bassi will be submitted within three months.