WBIFMS 3.0 Down: The Government of West Bengal recently announced the temporary shutdown of its upgraded and augmented financial management system, WBIFMS 3.0 (West Bengal Integrated Financial Management System), due to technical reasons. This sudden announcement has caused inconvenience for many users. In this blog post, we will discuss in detail the reasons for this portal shutdown, the main problems faced by users, and the steps taken by the government.
WBIFMS 3.0: A Brief Overview
To bring more transparency and accountability to public finance and to ensure an efficient and equitable public service delivery system by harnessing advancements in technology, the Government of West Bengal introduced WBIFMS 3.0 from April 1, 2025. This new version was planned to be rolled out in a phased manner, incorporating different modules and sub-modules. Initially, a specific set of object Heads of Accounts were introduced through WBIFMS 3.0. For these heads, operations involving e-Bantan for fund distribution, generation of e-Bills, submission to treasuries, and their processing were mandatorily to be done using WBIFMS 3.0.
Portal Shutdown Announcement and Reason
According to a Finance Department notification dated May 28th, 2025, the WBIFMS 3.0 portal will be kept under temporary shutdown for urgent maintenance from May 30th, 2025, until further notice due to some technical reasons.
Major Problems Faced by Users
Since the launch of WBIFMS 3.0, users had been encountering several significant issues. Some of the main problems were:
- Lack of Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) Functionality: There was no facility for using Digital Signature Certificates to submit bills. Every login required OTP-based approval, which was time-consuming and inconvenient.
- Non-availability of Old Data: As the new portal was not yet linked with the previous version (WBIFMS 2.0), old data was not visible.
- Difficulty in Bill Modification: There was no option to modify a bill after it had been created, posing a major hurdle in correcting errors.
- Automatic Bill Numbering: Users could not enter bill numbers manually; the system generated an automatic bill number. This caused problems with record-keeping and subsequent bill retrieval.
- Server Errors: Users were also facing server related errors while using this portal.
These technical issues are likely the primary reasons for the temporary shutdown of the portal.
Government Measures and Alternative Arrangements
To manage the situation and keep government operations running, the government has stated that all operations (e-Bantan, CTS, e-Billing) for the previously notified object Heads of Accounts would be available under the existing WBIFMS (WBIFMS 2.0) from the first working day of June 2025. This is expected to ensure that essential services and financial transactions are not disrupted.
District Magistrates and Treasury Officers/PAOs have been requested to provide necessary training and handholding support for the proper capacity building of stakeholders like DDOs/SAOs under their jurisdiction to facilitate a smooth onboarding onto the new version of WBIFMS.
Once the technical glitches are resolved and the new and improved portal is relaunched, users should be able to work more smoothly. Users are requested to be patient and continue their work using the old system until further notice.
