MOBILE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR RURAL ADVANCEMENT- MITRA

Transcription

1 MOBILE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR RURAL ADVANCEMENT- MITRA Jan Shiksha Evam Vikas Sangathan People s Education and Development Organization-PEDO Village& PO- MADA, District- Dungarpur Rajasthan 1

2 PEDO: Background of Organization VISION: Self-reliant rural communities striving for sustainable livelihood with value based development orientation. MISION: Strengthen value based people's institution to utilize existing resources for poverty alleviation and environmental up-gradation Having gained twenty eight years experience through various developmental program. PEDO now, concentrates on following major areas of interest and concern. These are: 1. Women empowerment through micro-credit. 2. Environmental up gradation through natural resource management. 3. Promotion primary education. 4. Rural decentralization and strengthening Panchayati Raj 5. Rural housing 6. Promoting self-sustained Institutions 7. Irrigation and Agriculture Development 2

3 PEDO s Microfinance Program Target population are tribal Communities. Started in after a series of Droughts. (Dungarpur is a drought prone area) Women were the worst sufferers as Male population migrated to neighboring industrial towns in search of work, leaving women to manage family and land. The practice of migration is still on. Microfinance was promoted by PEDO to invest in Agriculture Sector and assets Building for sustainable livelihood, and women empowerment To Develop self sustain women s institution for long term 3

4 PEDO s Microfinance Program: Facts and Figures Village Covered: 520 Total No. of Groups: 2417 Total Members: 40,143 ( only one member for one households) Total Savings: Rs. 6,76,07,815 Total Loan: Rs. 38,40,06,623 Repayment Rate: 94% Total No. of Loans: Total Loan at risk: 2% Total Loan Members: (57%) No. of Clusters: 85 No. of Federations: 12 Average loan size: Rs

5 Structure of PEDO s Microfinance Network Tier SHG member Individual women Member. One member allowed from a household. Role and Focus -Timely Deposition of Savings and Loan repayments. -Collect Hand written receipt and Maintain personal accounts - Attend regular Meetings and maintain discipline of Group. SHG ( 20 SHG Members) SHG Leadership Elected from members -President -Treasurer PEDO staff -Field Trainer (One Field Trainer for 20 SHGs or one cluster) Cluster (20 SHGs) Cluster Leadership- Elected from SHG leadership -President -Secretary PEDO staff -Field Trainer (one for Every Cluster) Federation (8 Clusters) Covers around 25 to 30 Villages. All the management and Administrative Decisions are made from Federations. Federations are made Financially Self Sustainable Not the clusters or groups. Federation Leadership Elected from Cluster leadership -Federation President -Executive body (consisting the leaders of Cluster) PEDO staff -Member Secretary -Accountant PEDO Microfinance Cadre -Conducting meetings -Collecting Savings and Repayment of loans -Book keeping and Generating Account statements -Depositing Cash to the Banks -Disbursing small loans (up to Rs.5000) -Verification of loan utilization -Discussion and identification of Livelihood promotion activities. -Conducting meetings -Checking and Consolidation of SHGs Accounts and Generating Clusters account statements -Planning of Livelihood promotion activities -Marketing of SHG products - Sanctioning Larger loans (More than Rs 5000) -Monitoring the performance of Repayments of SHGs -Review and Planning for SHGs and Clusters for livelihood, bank loans, marketing, previous meeting minutes and attendance, loan over-dues and Savings -Financial Monitoring of Clusters and SHGs -Policy Decisions -Coordinating Auditing of SHGs and Cluster accounts -Event Organization for Foundation day and other occasions -Budgeting and collecting contributions by SHGs and Clusters -Developing linkages with banks and other departments -Conflict Resolution -Developing livelihood activities, marketing of products and technical support to SHGs -Promotion of SHG Based Microfinance in Dungarpur District. -Capacity Building of Microfinance Stakeholders -Monitoring, performance appraisal and review of Accounts and Program of all SHGs and federations. -Develop linkages with Financial Institutions, Government Departments for livelihood promotion activities. -Advocacy for SHG.

6 Existing MIS of Microfinance Manually managed records and accounts Group level: Cash Books, Member's Diaries, Ledger, Bank Accounts, Meeting Minutes, Receipts and Attendance. Cluster Level: Consolidation of groups accounts, Income expenditure sheets, Financial and loans status sheets, group level livelihood projections. Federation Level: Consolidation of Clusters accounts, Income Expenditure records, loan repayment records, risk loans, loan verifications, auditing of accounts 6

7 MITRA- Mobile Information Technology for Rural Advancement THEME Mobile Based Management Information System for Women s Empowerment through Microfinance VISION Promotion of Self sustained, self managed women s organization for Social and Economic Empowerment. MISSION To establish transparent and easily accessible Management Information System (MIS) to develop an ownership of Women s Institution. 7

8 Objectives of MITRA Objective 1: Introduce Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Tribal Areas. Objective 2: Develop and educate local women s Cadre to Utilize ICT. Objective 3: Develop Efficient, User friendly and transparent System for Primary Stakeholders (SHG) for providing microfinance services 8

9 Target Stakeholders of Project Primary target group is 2417 Tribal Women s Self Help Groups consisting 40,143 women members. These groups consist of Below Poverty line (BPL) Tribal women, each woman representing one household. Tribal in this region live in a scattered pattern making the outdated manually managed Information System inefficient, inaccessible, time and energy consuming. 9

10 Structure of PEDO s Microfinance Network After MITRA Tier ICT Introduction Role and Focus SHG member SHG ( 20 SHG Members) Cluster (20 SHGs) Federation (8 Clusters) PEDO 10 Receipt will be provided for all transaction Field Facilitator, Who attends all the meeting of SHGs in the cluster to be provided with Mobile based Management Information System and Blue tooth Receipt Printer. She needs to provide receipt to the members against all the transactions and report them to the Central Hub. Federation Accountant will be provided with a computer, printer and Internet Connectivity. She may browse and print Accounts of Groups or any individual. (modifications and deletion of matter will be allowed only in special circumstances) She needs to disseminate information to SHGs and Cluster on regular basis. To review and monitor all the transactions and provide feedback to Federations. -Timely Deposition of Savings and Loan repayments. -Collect Mobile receipt and Maintain personal accounts - Attend regular Meetings and maintain discipline of Group. -Conducting meetings -Collecting Savings and Repayment of loans -Issuing Receipts of transactions to members -Updating Account statements by Mobile Updaters. -Depositing Cash to the Banks -Disbursing small loans (up to Rs.5000) -Verification of loan utilization -Discussion and identification of Livelihood promotion activities. -Conducting meetings -Planning of Livelihood promotion activities -Marketing of SHG products - Sanctioning Larger loans (More than Rs 5000) -Monitoring the performance of Repayments of SHGs by Pre-Generated Account statements and presenting the same to SHGs. -Review and Planning for SHGs and Clusters for livelihood, bank loans, marketing, previous meeting minutes and attendance, loan over-dues and Savings -Financial Monitoring of Clusters and SHGs through Pre-Generated Account Statements -Policy Decisions -Coordinating Auditing of SHGs and Cluster accounts facilitated by Pre-Generated Account statements -Event Organization for Foundation day and other occasions -Budgeting and collecting contributions by SHGs and Clusters -Developing linkages with banks and other departments -Conflict Resolution -Developing livelihood activities, marketing of products and technical support to SHGs -Promotion of SHG Based Microfinance in Dungarpur District. -Capacity Building of Microfinance Stakeholders -Online Monitoring, performance appraisal and review of Accounts and Program of all SHGs and federations. -Develop linkages with Financial Institutions, Government Departments for livelihood promotion activities and Advocacy for SHG.

11 11 Technical Specifications and Intervention

12 How it works 12 Data is first entered into CAM Forms User captures an image of the header of form plus each of the input codes Each input code prompts the user to enter the value of the field The data entry was all numeric After entering all values, the user captures the Submit code button to post transaction to web server

13 Advantages of Technology No human errors Reduce delay in reporting and monitoring Introduce Transparency and Accountability Anywhere / Anytime access User-friendly data entry and reports Timely feedback and Management action Saving in operational cost Time saved would be utilized for Livelihood promotional activities viz. Marketing 13

14 Expected Benefits to stakeholders Time saving on writing lengthy account statements and its further analysis and therefore providing feedbacks Time will also be saved by Field Facilitator by not traveling to the Federation Office for submitting the information and accounts, as around 10 days every month are spent at Federation Office Information will be sent in front of the account holder and a receipt of the same will be provided for her records The field facilitators, who already are accountable for the SHGs performance, will now be facilitated to improve their performance Auditing will become easier and can be performed timely, in lesser time 14

15 Progress Orientation of Federation staff on MITRA Member-wise updation of records for data entry Need Assessment of the system Software specifications Finalized Mobile application software Tested Procurement of hardware being finalized District SHG helpline initiated (Toll free No.1707)