Gujarat Makes Finance Advisor Approval Mandatory For Key Decisions

According to an official order related to the 2025-26 state budget, departments planning to create new posts-whether regular, outsourced, or contract-based—must first assess their current staffing. This includes reviewing how many positions are approved, filled, or vacant.

Based on this review, they must prepare a detailed proposal—based on office setup and post norms—and submit it to the Expenditure Division of the Finance Department through the Finance Advisor, with due justification for approval.

The same rule would apply for replacing old or condemned vehicles. Before buying news ones under categories A to D, existing vehicles’ condition must be inspected and administrative approval sought in consultation with their Finance Advisor.

The process remains the same when it comes to new capital works—like constructing office buildings, ashram schools, hostels, health centers, hospitals, housing, or infrastructure such as roads, bridges, irrigation projects, sewerage, fiber networks, pipelines, riverfront development, energy, industries, and tourism. That said, departments such as Narmada, Water Resources, Water Supply, and Kalpsar, as well as those involved in road construction, will continue to follow their own internal approval procedures as per existing rules.

In the case of IT hardware/software purchases:

• For procurements up to ₹2 crore, the department head must act in consultation with the Finance Advisor.
  For purchases exceeding ₹2 crore, a proposal must be submitted to the Finance Department via the Finance Advisor.
• The same approval process will apply for departments wanting to purchase new machinery or equipment. For rolling out of new schemes, proposals must go through the departments’ Finance Advisor before reaching the Secretary (Expenditure) in the Finance department.

Checklist A Must For Administrative Approval:

According to Deputy Secretary (Expenditure), Dr. Nisarg Joshi, no proposal will move forward without a proper checklist—whether for hiring or buying. Every department must prepare it, get it duly signed and certified by the competent authority. Approval will be granted upon review of this checklist. Proposals without this checklist simply won’t be considered.