NEW SOFTWARE TO MAKE BOOK KEEPING EASY

NEW SOFTWARE TO

MAKE BOOK KEEPING EASY

Two young engineers hailing from rural areas have developed a software application that may change the way the micro-finance system works in villages and small towns. The software, ‘Sangraha' , tries to bring about accountability, reliability and transparency by creating an online method of book-keeping under which the transactions by field-level collection agents are instantaneously updated to the main server.

Rajashekhar, a 32-year-old mobile software architect, who played a key role in developing the software, said that at present, collection agents of rural co-operative banks use hand-held machines with which they give receipts to customers after receiving money. But this would get registered in the bank accounts only the next day when the agents go to the bank and synchronise the data in the hand-held gadgets.However, the norms of the Reserve Bank of India stipulate that such transactions should be instantaneously registered with the bank account, he points out.Under ‘Sangraha', the collection agent's mobile phones double up as money-collecting gadgets as it is linked to the bank's computer network.Mr. Rajashekhar said a doorstep money delivery system is also on the cards with another software vitharana . Finger prints of customers would be taken through a finger-print scanner attached to the mobile phone and stored in the network. Money disbursal can take place by verifying finger prints, he points out. According to him, the management of the banks or companies can keep a tab on their collecting agents with the help of this system.

 “If the collecting agent is new and the management is yet to have confidence in him, it can always prevent him from collecting more than a particular sum of money at a time. This system could be used in pigmy collection and process involving door-step cash collection including money paid for milk supply and newspaper delivery as well as the grocery. Already three co-operative banks – Navachetana co-operative bank's nine branches in Haveri district and Veerabhadreshwara Co-operative Bank in Chitradurga are using it, he pointed out. Within six months of developing this software solution, there is so much demand for it, he says. The software is developed by Bangalore-based Tycoon Software Technologies Private Ltd., which was founded two years ago by Mr. Rajashekhar, another software professional T.R. Venkatesh and Col M. B. Ravindranath Magod.

                                                                     Prof. John Kurakar