Role and Function

·         The activities relating to sovereign external assistance are dealt by various divisions in the Department of Economic Affairs. Aid Accounts & Audit Division (AA&A Division) is one such Division.

 

·         While the various Divisions in the DEA negotiate external assistance, covering activities like project identification, source of external funding, negotiation and conclusion of Agreement, the AA&A Division deals with all matters connected with financial covenants in the Agreement. It is the designated authority to withdraw funds from Loan/Grant Account.  AA&A Division is responsible for scrutinizing claims received from the Project Implementing Agencies as to their eligibility as per relevant credit agreements  and submitting the same to the donor for obtaining disbursement. For release of Additional Central Assistance (ACA) to the concerned states, disbursement particulars State-wise are sent to the Department of Expenditure. Aid Accounts & Audit Division is also responsible for framing the budget estimates relating to External Assistance for Receipts and Repayments. Timely discharge of debt service payments to all the donors and for maintaining Loan Account under each Loan Agreement is also the job of this Division.   

 

·         AA&A Division maintains a comprehensive external debt database relating to sovereign debt from all multilateral and bilateral donors including debt contracted by parastatals guaranteed by Government. An External Assistance Brochure containing detailed information about Debt Outstanding; Un-drawn Balances from the Loan/Grant Account donor-wise, loan agreement-wise, sector-wise etc. is published annually by this Division

 

·         This Division is also responsible for carrying out audit of Import licenses issued to registered exporters for export promotion by the 37 Licensing offices under Directorate General of Foreign Trade.

 

·        To facilitate monitoring and to provide access to Project Implementing Agencies, State Governments, Line Ministries and others, this Division maintains a dynamic web-site which is hosted on this Division's server. The web-site ID is "aaad.gov.in". The information published on the web-site covers the latest financial information on various parameters (for details see "Site Map").

 

ISO Certification

 

The Office of Aid Accounts and Audit Division, Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance has attained ISO 9001:2008   certification on "Disbursal of External Aid, Accounting and Debt Servicing", by adopting the ISO bench-marking norms to optimize efficiency and output. The office is one amongst a few accounts offices in the country to have ISO standards.

 

Future Plans

 

·         Extension of E-submission of claims to donors: At present, AAAD submits the claims electronically for some World Bank Projects through Client Connection of the World Bank. More projects will be covered under this programme in the near future.

·         Rollout of E-submission of claim to all projects: It is proposed that some select projects authorities will submit the claims electronically using AAAD application. The feasibility of extending this facility to all the projects will be examined in due course.

·         Activate linkage with Department of Expenditure: It is proposed that AAAD will exchange data electronically for Additional Central Assistance for Externally Aided Projects with Plan Finance – I, Department of Expenditure.