The Mehbooba led PDP-BJP government suddenly putting on hold the Pay and Accounts Office (PAO) system that was introduced in Jammu and Kashmir to bring transparency in financial transactions of government departments has snowballed into a major controversy.

The PAO system was introduced by the sacked Finance minister Haseeb Drabu but his successor Altaf Bukhari’s first action was to put it on hold within minutes after taking over the portfolio.

Bukhari’s statement that the system has been put on hold due to some technical problems is being taken with a pinch of salt by the general public.

Drabu, who is a financial expert, had started working towards the introduction of the online PAO system as soon as he was given charge of the Finance portfolio in 2015 amidst frequent reports of misutilisation of government funds and large scale corruption in manual release of payments to contractors and other agencies.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) had in its reports repeatedly been pointing out instances of large scale financial indiscipline in J&K but the successive governments paid no heed towards the widespread corrupt practices as a result of which Jammu and Kashmir has come to be known as one of the most corrupt states in the country.

Governor NN Vohra during his each meeting with the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has been asking her to bring in transparency in governance. He also summoned top officers of the vigilance and anti-corruption wings to gear them up.

Vohra had also brought to the notice of the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh the urgent need for transparency of financial transactions in the state.

The Opposition parties have started taking jibes at the PDP-BJP government for putting on hold the PAO system on which people had pinned hopes of something good being done.

The leader of the opposition Omar Abdullah in his tweet wrote, “For 3 years the Jammu and Kashmir legislature was told that this reform would be a major step towards the transparent use of funds. A measure approved by legislative vote has been overturned by a mere government order.”

The National Conference (NC) said the sudden rollback of the PAO system by the government has exposed ruling PDP’s moral smokescreen over the sacking of Drabu.

The sudden and arbitrary rollback of the PAO Reform brought in by the J-K government just last month through the Assembly raises a huge red flag.

It seems the PAO system was a reason for Drabu’s removal and the CM needs to be held to account – how can a reform that your government pushed through the Legislature just a month or so ago suddenly become untouchable and unacceptable?,” the NC spokesperson said.

He said there were apprehensions that the reforms were being rolled back to benefit some particular individuals and players, indicating a collusion with the state government and this was a serious charge that needed to be probed independently.