FM launches e-Bill system

The e-Bill system has been initially rolled out in nine Pay and Accounting Units of various central ministries and departments including Steel, Food Processing and New and Renewable Energy.

"It will be rolled out in other ministries and departments in a phased manner in 2022-23. "In a phased manner, the new system will make the entire process of submission and backend processing of bills completely paperless and transparent," the Finance Ministry said.

The new system will help vendors and suppliers to submit their bills claims at any time and from anywhere, eliminating the physical interface between suppliers and government officers.

Currently, the vendors and suppliers have to submit physical, signed copies of their bills to the respective ministries and departments of the Government of India.

The government employees also need to submit hard copies of their claims.

At the backend also, the processing of bills is done through a mixed system of physical and digital modes.

This requires the claimants to visit the government offices to deliver bills.

Under the e-Bill system, vendors and suppliers can upload their bills online along with supporting documents from the convenience of their homes at any time through digital signature.

For those not having a digital signature, the facility of e-sign using Aadhaar has also been provided in the new system.

"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. Thus, the new system will bring in a lot of efficiency and transparency in the system and is a big citizen-centric decision of the Government of India," Finance Ministry said.

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.

"In addition to promoting ease of doing business and bringing 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 paper every year. The e-Bill system has an elaborate digital storage facility for retrieval of documents and a robust audit trail," the Ministry said.