(a) whether the Asian Development Bank has cleared technical assistance for one million US Dollar grant to the Government of Assam to strengthen its budgeting and planning processes and to improve fiscal management of the State; and
(b) if so, terms of the grant sanctioned and the details of the technical assistance sought and given, indicating the schemes and programmes to be financed therewith ?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE (SHRI ANANDRAO V. ADSUL)
(a): Yes Sir.
(b) : The technical assistance (TA) is to be financed as 100% grant for capacity building in budget procedure reform and fiscal management. The TA is to strengthen Government of Assam`s capacity to implement the Medium Term Fiscal Reform Program (MTFRP) signed by the Government of Assam and the Government of India. The support through the TA would be for strengthening policy analysis and improving Management Information Systems to enable better expenditure control and management. This would be through supporting (i) the establishment of a legislative framework for improving the State`s fiscal management & fiscal reporting; (ii) improve-ment of the state`s planning & budgeting process; (iii) strengthening of the state`s expenditure management and control; (iv) improvement of public sector service delivery by supporting the preparation of a functional assessment of the state administration and the development and evaluation of options for its organizational restructuring and rightsizing; and (v) exploration and piloting of e-governance options for improving staff relations and procurement and disbursement processes.