Position: Joint Secretaries 

Organization: Finance Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh

Location: Andhra Pradesh

JOB DESCRIPTION

Professional expertise and experience requirements should cover the following: 

Public Finance:

• Analysis of program/project budgets on various norms, benchmarks, and other elements of relevance and reasonableness
• Analyze the various aspects of public finance against FRBM stipulations and applicable benchmarks, formulate an action plan for optimization, and anchor its implementation
• Revenues optimized with respect to their potential, cost of collection, economic distortions, etc.
• Expenditure optimized with respect to overall quality, effectiveness, efficiency and equity, etc.
• Budget optimized with respect to reducing gap between estimated and actual, etc.
• Cash flow optimized with respect to duration in which payments are made, revenue inflow and expenditure outflow, etc.
• Debt with regard to sustainability indicators and cost of debt
• Investments optimized with respect to returns
• Funds comprising Public Account, Consolidated Sinking Fund, Rural Development Fund, etc. optimized with respect to adequacy and other necessary parameters.
• Assist the Department in analyzing various departmental proposals that have a significant impact on public finances.
• Undertake perspective financial planning for the short, medium and long term in terms of key fiscal indicators.
• Study the process of Financial Management, Budgetary Control, Financial Reporting and suggest improvements as necessary.
• Keep abreast of emerging ideas in developmental arena, emerging technologies like Blockchain, fintech, etc., assess their applicability and scope for implementation within the state.
• Formulate proposals for establishment/modification and capacity building of government organizations, business process reengineering of government activities, proposals for adoption of best practices and new technologies in government processes, etc.
• Undertake necessary analysis of fiscal policy of Government of India, monetary policy of RBI, and assess their impact on fiscal and growth parameters of the State.
• Identify avenues for availing finance from national and international development finance institutions.

Appraisal

• Appraisal of DPRs, contracts, concession agreements etc., especially in Public Private Partnership (PPP) Projects
• Participate in consultative process of DPR preparation stage with the concerned departments and contribute towards improving the quality – particularly in quantitative terms – of DPRs and factoring realistic assessment of return on investment, financial viability, impact on state finances, etc.
• Appraisal of IT systems – hardware and software – for needs-assessment, high-level specifications, value for money etc.
• Appraisal of development programs, projects, and policies in terms of quantifiable outcomes.
• Analyze proposals from agricultural & allied sectors with regard to key economic indicators – financial impact, farmers’ incomes, production, productivity etc., spanning instruments such as MSP, market interventions, input subsidies, crop insurance, etc.
• Analyze proposals from industries and service sectors with regard to key economic indicators – financial impact, wages, GVA, production, investment, employment, productivity, market distortions, competitiveness, etc.
• Analyze policy proposals from social sector – Health, Education, Pensions, PDS, Welfare departments etc., with regard to their intended outcomes and financial outlays.

Project Finance

• Assist the Department in analyzing major infrastructural proposals from other Departments, adopting Value for Money concepts and tools like Public Sector Comparator as necessary, to assess these proposals or their business plans.
• Appraisal of financial models to assess commercial viability, costs and benefits, and economic and financial rates of returns
• Suggest measures to improve mobilization of finances for infrastructural projects and anchor their implementation.
• Keep abreast of emerging ideas in project finance, assess their applicability and scope for implementation within the state.
• Assess the financial and administrative capacity of urban local bodies to undertake infra projects in PPP mode
• Remain abreast of financial support available from Government of India for infrastructure projects under various schemes.

Public procurement

• Design and customization of procurement processes
• Compliance with procurement norms
• Value for money analysis of procurements
• Benchmarks and best practices in procurements

Monitoring and Evaluation

• Benchmarking and comparing of the service levels, and outputs and outcomes of different types of development programs
• Concurrent and post-completion evaluation of important schemes, programs, and projects
• Analysis of administrative data generated from the implementation of programs and projects to improve their effectiveness
• Expenditure management to increase value for money and the quality-of-service delivery in important government programs
• Undertake necessary impact assessments of programmes with significant financial outlays – Direct Benefits Transfer, various fiscal incentives etc.

Human Resource

• Manpower planning, including analysis based on requirements with workloads
• Assist the Department in analyzing various departmental proposals with regard to changes in organizational structures, creation of posts, and other related issues.
• Assist the Department in analyzing various departmental proposals with regard to compensation structures for professional from market, duly examining internal parity with respect to Governmental structure and external parity with respect to comparable jobs in the market.
• Analyze human resource management in the administration and suggest measures for capacity building and improving effectiveness, within the overall context of service rules and general employment conditions within the Government.

The candidates are expected to have expertise in some combination of these areas.

The work would involve the following activities

• Process files circulating through the Finance Department
• Scrutinize the documents and reports submitted by the departments.
• Analysis of administrative data to identify relevant and actionable insights.
• Deep dive problem solving on the issues mentioned at 2.1 above.
• Undertake literature surveys and interviews to understand the issues and figure out solutions, and suggest best practices and innovations.
• Develop notes, briefs, and longer documents that capture ideas and conceptualize implementation plans.
• Scrutinize various documents and attend meetings, consolidate takeaways and issues of relevance, and present them to decision-makers.
• Create presentations on specific ideas and issues for internal and external communication purposes.
• Engag