What are various funds of India?
Q. Which of the following is/are true regarding various funds in India?
1) Article 266 deals with Contingency fund of India.
2) Public account of India and Contingency fund of India do not need parliamentary approval for using their money.- Published on 03 Mar 17a. Only 1
b. Only 2
c. Both 1 and 2
d. Neither 1 nor 2
ANSWER: Only 2
The Constitution of India provides for the 3 kinds of funds for the Central Government -
- Consolidated Fund of India (Article 266) - It is a fund to which all receipts are credited and all payments are debited.
Consolidated Fund of India has -
1. all revenues received by the Government of India;
2. all loans raised by the Government by the issue of treasury bills, loans or ways and means of advances; and
3. all money received by the government in repayment of loans.
- All the legally authorized payments on behalf of the Government of India are made out of this fund.
- No money out of this fund can be appropriated (issued or drawn) except in accordance with a parliamentary law.
- Public Account of India (Article 266) - All other public money (other than those which are credited to the Consolidated Fund of India) received by or on behalf of the Government of India shall be credited to the Public Account of India.
- This includes provident fund deposits, judicial deposits, savings bank deposits, departmental deposits, remittances and so on.
- This account is operated by executive action, that is, the payments from this account can be made without parliamentary appropriation.
- Such payments are mostly in the nature of banking transactions.
- Contingency Fund of India (Article 267) - The Constitution authorised the Parliament to establish a ‘Contingency Fund of India’, into which amounts determined by law are paid from time to time.
- Accordingly, the Parliament enacted the contingency fund of India Act in 1950.
- This fund is placed at the disposal of the president, and he can make advances out of it to meet unforeseen expenditure pending its authorisation by the Parliament.
- The fund is held by the finance secretary on behalf of the president.
- It is also operated by executive action.
