Bharatkosh, A Glittering Star In Digital India Galaxy
Is it a “Shabd Kosh” (Hindi Dictionary)? Is it a “fund” like PM Cares Fund? Or is it an NGO? We were surprised to hear these kind of queries when we made inquiry about Bharatkosh among general public. Even many senior bureaucrats were unaware about it. Only the business class dealing with the Central Government seems to know about it. Well, Bharatkosh is an online web portal–single window of the Union Government for consolidated collection of non-taxes for all Ministries and Departments. It works under the supervision of the Controller General of Accounts (CGA). Curiosity took us to Mrs Dharitri Panda, Indian Civil Accounts Service (ICAS), Additional Controller General of Accounts, Public Financial Management System (PFMS) Division, CGA, Department of Expenditure,
Ministry of Finance. Panda told The Sunday Guardian that “Bharatkosh is a glittering star in Digital India galaxy.” She said that the non-taxes form a major part of government revenues. Unlike the direct and indirect taxes, there is no nodal Ministry or Department to act as a single point of collection for non-taxes.
Instead, Panda pointed out that the non-taxes used to be collected through physical modes by each ministry and reported in their respective accounts. “This arrangement had many shortcomings like inconvenience to citizens, delayed realization of government receipts, non-availability of consolidated collection numbers till late and redundant collection cost.” “To overcome these issues,” Panda said, “the CGA office under the mandate approved by Union Finance Minister developed an online web based system for consolidated collection of non-taxes for all Ministries and Departmentswhich was inaugurated by the then Finance Minister on 15 February 2016.” Since then, this 24×7 platform has come a long way and evolved further. It is hosted on the robust platform of the PFMS. Bharatkosh allows citizens, corporates or any entity to make online payments to Government using modes like credit card, debit card, internet banking, UPI, NEFT and RTGS.
Receipts Size Doesn’t Matter
Bharatkosh has the capability to collect small and large payments due to Central government—from a small receipt of Rs 10 payment for a Right to Information application to some of the high value payments like dividends from PSUs, license fee from telecom operators etc. “First receipt collected through Bharatkosh portal was a dividend from the National Thermal Power Corporation worth Rs. 989 crores,” Panda informed. All types of non-tax receipts, due to the government can be routed through Bharatkosh. The website is also receiving donations for Swachh Bharat and the National Disaster Relief Fund.
Daily Collections Are Huge
Since its inception, Bharatkosh has collected receipts worth Rs 6,08,305 crore. The highest amount of receipt collected through a single transaction on Bharatkosh portal is Rs 55,000 crore, on account of CAMPA fund related to Ministry of Environment and Forest. The daily average collection is Rs. 298 crore.
As on 31 August 2021, 60 Ministries/Departments comprising of 392 Pay and Accounts Offices are government treasury offices are on-board on Bharatkosh portal for collection of non-tax receipts.
Integration with Government Entities
Owing to a unified platform not being available prior to Bharatkosh, several Ministries and Departments had come with their own systems to facilitate the receipts and associated work flow for their respective Ministries, “These portals had already gained recognition among the citizens and replacing them overnight with Bharatkosh might have led to citizens’ inconvenience and confusion,” said Panda, informing that “to overcome this challenge, a new method of integration with Bharatkosh was designed wherein all such existing portals of various government offices could exist in parallel and only route their payments to be facilitated on Bharatkosh while receiving a reverse feed on success or failure of the payment”.
Covid-19 Pandemic
During the pandemic, the portal facilitated the citizens to remit payment against the services they wished to avail from various Ministries/Departments from the comfort of their home. The facility could be used to remit payment 24×7. A dedicated team supported people for a seamless experience over the web portal of Bharatkosh: www.bharatkosh.gov.in. Bharatkosh has an integration linkage with the website of Central Drugs Standard Control Organization which provides a license to any drug manufacturer in India. Bharatkosh was instrumental in processing payment for license application of all Covid-19 drugs being manufactured in India by all pharma companies.
For Efficiency, User Friendliness
To make Bharatkosh more robust, initiatives such as periodic load testing, augmentation of existing hardware resources, enhancement of concurrent users are undertaken on a regular basis, said Anupam Raj, ICAS, Assistant Controller General of Accounts. According to Raj, initiatives are underway to make Bharatkosh more user-friendly while ensuring the secure channel for use of financial instruments by the citizens.
Digital India Dream Highway
“Indeed,” Additional CGA Dharitri Panda summed up, “Bharatkosh is now a prominent e-governance channel and it is scripting India’s economic growth story through digital India dream highway.” Several independent portals and websites are currently integrated with Bharatkosh for collection and accounting of their receipts. One of the major stakeholders of Bharatkosh is the Information & Broadcasting Ministry.