Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

14 MACS create history by going online

By Ravi Reddy

NIZAMABAD DEC. 19. In yet another step towards empowerment of the thrift groups in the district, 14 Mutually Aided Cooperative Societies (MACS) have gone on line and adopted the state-of-the-art Financial Accounting and Management Information System (FAMIS), the first to do so in the State.

The computerisation of the accounting procedure and the management information system has been made possible with an understanding entered between the Gram Abhyudaya Mandali (Gram), a Private Development Organisation (PDO), involved in social, economic, cultural and political empowerment of the poorest of the poor and women in Nizamabad and Adilabad districts and Basix, a new generation rural livelihood promotion institution set up in 1996. Gram has promoted more than 3,000 thrift groups in the two districts.

Basix promotes a large number of sustainable livelihoods, including the rural poor and women, through the provision of financial services and technical assistance in integrated manner. Since 1996, it has disbursed over 1.25 lakh loans worth more than Rs. 150 crores with the repayment rate exceeding 95 per cent and generating more than 50,000 livelihoods in terms of wage and self-employment. Basix operates in 19 districts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Jharkhand covering more than 4,500 villages.

The members of the 14 MACS would not have imagined that they would one day go online. The MACS going online are the ones in Dichpalli, Jakranpalli, Navipet, Nandipet, Makloor, Bichkunda, Madnoor and Pitlam in Nizamabad district while Mudhole, Lohesra, Thanoor and Bhainsa have also joined the list.

The Gram Abhyudaya Mandali Director, N. Samson, says that the Famis Plus software enables the staff to spend more time on analysis and decision- making. He said the software would pave the way for e-connectivity through mails. The idea is to provide the information through the website so that those who are keen to do research on the micro-financial institutions are benefited.

The software developed by Basix going by the name of FAMIS Plus is a comprehensive Financial Accounting and Management Information System, which has built in portfolio tracking and deposit monitoring tools. Managers of the 14 MACS are attending a two-day training programme to coincide with the launching of the FAMIS Plus package.

In addition, it also keeps tab of the history of information related to the members, which would help in generating various reports to evaluate the socio-economic impact. The software has been developed in Windows FoxPro (ver 2.6) and FoxPRo (Ver4.2) on the DOS platform. This contains two packages, namely, financial accounting (FA) and Management information system (MIS) and both are integrated to produce the financial statements.

The Basix Project Manager, Santosh K. Vaidya, says all receipts and payments other than member related transactions, payments to collaborators and input supplies, inter-office transfers, journal entries and other closing entries would be passed in the financial accounting to produce financial statements.

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