Bengaluru to digitise contractor bill processing, link payments to work progress

Bengaluru Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda has directed officials to introduce a time-bound, digital system for processing and paying contractor bills across Bengaluru’s five city corporations, with the reforms covering both government-funded works and projects financed from corporations’ own resources.

The new system seeks to reduce manual processing, shorten approval chains and fix responsibility at every stage of bill movement. It will also link payments more closely to physical progress, quality control and contract monitoring, an official statement said.

Under the revised process, work bills will move through the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS). The Project Management Consultant (PMC) will scrutinise bills, field engineers will verify and certify them, and the Chief Engineer will pre-audit and approve them before payment is processed based on seniority, the statement added.


Payments will be made directly to contractors’ registered bank accounts through IFMS using OTP-based authentication, replacing manual RTGS transactions. The system is expected to improve traceability and reduce manual intervention.

Each stage, including PMC scrutiny and quality-control checks, will have a prescribed time limit. Field engineers, for instance, will have seven days to verify and certify bills. Failure to act within the stipulated period will result in deemed approval and automatic movement of the bill to the next level.

Officials and agencies will also be held accountable for delays. If an irregularity is subsequently established after an officer or agency fails to take corrective action within the prescribed period, responsibility will be fixed for the lapse.

Bills can be withheld or rejected only with recorded reasons in the system. The provision will be integrated into the IFMS, giving contractors greater clarity on the status of their bills and reasons for any hold or rejection.

Contract management will also be integrated into IFMS, allowing works to be tracked from award and execution to bill processing and final payment. Engineers will record physical progress in the Real-time Information Monitoring System (RIMS), with bill processing linked to the progress recorded on the platform.

The PMC will scrutinise bills before they reach corporation engineers, who will certify compliance with quality-control observations. Final Security Deposit (FSD) payments will be released at the level of the Executive Engineer of the concerned division, without a separate reference to the DCF and Commissioner.

The reforms also seek to increase public oversight. The name of the engineer in charge and the contractor responsible for each work will be displayed at the worksite and recorded officially. A public dashboard will provide citizens with information on the status and progress of ongoing and completed works.

An Internal Audit Wing will also be established within the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) and corporations. It will conduct periodic internal audits in addition to the annual audit by the Chief Auditor, GBA.

Gowda said the measures are aimed at creating a more predictable and accountable public-works payment system while improving financial oversight, quality control and timely execution across Bengaluru.