Mizoram inks pacts with 8 banks to tighten public fund management

The Mizoram government on September 7 signed agreements with eight banks to implement the ‘One Department, One Bank’ (ODOB) system, aimed at improving transparency, strengthening oversight and ensuring more effective management of public funds, officials said.

The initiative will initially cover eight government departments, with more departments to be brought under the system progressively.

The agreement was signed in the presence of Chief Minister Lalduhoma and his Adviser for Finance and Planning, TBC Lalvenchhunga.

Lalduhoma, who also holds the Finance portfolio, said repeated observations in Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports had highlighted instances where substantial government funds were parked in the accounts of Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs) without the knowledge of the Finance Department.

He said there were also occasions when the information provided to the Finance Department about such funds was inadequate.

“To address such difficulties and enable more effective monitoring of government funds, we have decided to implement the ‘One Department, One Bank’ system,” Lalduhoma said.

The chief minister said the initiative would bring greater transparency to public finance and help the government monitor and manage its funds more effectively.

The eight participating banks are State Bank of India, Mizoram Cooperative Apex Bank, Mizoram Rural Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Union Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank.

The mapping of the eight departments to the respective banks is yet to be finalised and is expected to be completed shortly.

The departments initially covered under the system are Public Works, Public Health Engineering, Power and Electricity, General Administration, Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, Rural Development and Administration, Health and Family Welfare, and Institutional Finance and State Lottery.

Lalduhoma also flagged Mizoram's relatively low credit-deposit (CD) ratio, which stood at 55.83 per cent in 2025-26, significantly below Assam's 73.52 per cent, Nagaland's 61.1 per cent and Tripura's 61 per cent.

The state government has set a target of increasing Mizoram's CD ratio to at least 67 per cent by 2028-29, and the chief minister urged banks to increase lending to help achieve the target.

Officials said schemes already governed by specific standard operating procedures for fund flow and management may be kept outside the ODOB framework where integrating them into the system is impractical.