Public Administration

7

Financial Administration

The significance of finance is too obvious to need any elaboration as no organisation can exist, much less achieve its objectives, without at least a minimum of financial resources. This is why Kautilya, the great Indian philosopher, remarked that ‘all undertakings depend upon finance, hence foremost attention should be paid to the treasury’.¹ Every administrative act has its financial implications, either creating a charge or making a contribution to the treasury. The importance of finance is so great in administration that Llyod George is said to have once remarked that ‘government is finance’.² In fact, finance constitutes the backbone, the life and blood of a government; it provides fuel to the administrative machinery. ...