PACS computerisation, and what it means for daily collection

The largest software project in Indian co-operative credit is underway, and as far as its published documents go, it has nothing to say about the man walking a route with a receipt book.

On 29 June 2022 the Government of India approved a Centrally Sponsored Project for Computerisation of Primary Agricultural Credit Societies, running five years from 2022-23 to 2026-27. It targets 63,000 societies with an outlay of ₹2,516 crore. The Ministry of Cooperation funds it and NABARD implements it.

What the project actually does

It puts societies on one system. In the Ministry's words, it brings "all the functional PACS onto an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) based common software", linked to NABARD through the state and district co-operative banks.

Three things are supplied to each society:

Hardware. "Each PACS under the scheme will be given a computer, webcam, VPN, printer and biometric device."

National Level PACS Software. An ERP to digitise day-to-day functions. NABARD "has on boarded the National Level PACS Software Vendor (NLPSV) who is developing the ERP modules."

A System Integrator. One per society, to digitise legacy data and customise the ERP to that state's policies.

The stated objectives are efficiency, faster loan disbursal, lower transaction costs, seamless accounting with the district and state banks, transparency, and a Common Accounting System with a Management Information System behind it.

The rollout runs through four named stages: a First Hand Report capturing the society as it is, a Field Visit Report prepared with the district or state bank and the integrator, a Digital Communication Tool to capture legacy data, and ERP go-live.

The gap, stated carefully

We read the project pages and the scheme guidance looking for daily collection, doorstep collection, agent collection or a pigmy module. We did not find any of them named.

That is worth stating precisely, because it is easy to over-read. The published pages describe a project, its money, its stages and its objectives. They are not a feature list, and the ERP may well handle collection without the ministry's summary saying so. What we can say is narrower and still useful: an institution cannot assume from the published material that the national software will handle a daily collection round, and should ask before planning on it.

Why the hardware list is the tell

Look at what each society receives: a computer, a webcam, a VPN, a printer, a biometric device. That is a counter. Nothing on that list leaves the building.

Daily collection happens away from the counter, by definition. The private market that has grown up around it sells exactly the thing this list omits, and our comparison of collection software covers four vendors selling rugged handhelds, phone apps and dedicated machines, all of them field equipment. Our guide to machines against apps works through why that choice is the expensive one.

So the national project and the private pigmy-software market are, on present evidence, solving adjacent problems rather than the same one. Computerisation addresses the society's books. Collection software addresses the route.

Scale, and what is out of scope

The Ministry counts 1,01,718 PACS with 13 crore members. The project targets 63,000. Roughly three societies in five are in scope, and the rest are outside it as published.

Alongside this, the Ministry plans to establish viable co-operatives in every panchayat, with an initial focus on 2,00,000 PACS, dairy and fishery co-operatives within five years, converging schemes from the dairy and fisheries departments. If that lands anywhere near its target, the number of village-level co-operative institutions grows faster than the computerisation project covers them.

What this does not change

None of it makes a society's deposits insured. A PACS is a society, and the DICGC states that primary co-operative societies are not insured by it. A computerised society with an ERP, a biometric device and a national software vendor behind it offers a depositor exactly the same protection as an uncomputerised one, which is none of the statutory kind. Our guide to the co-operative credit structure sets out where that line falls.

What we could not establish

• Whether the national ERP includes any daily-collection or agent-collection module. Not named in anything we read.
• How many of the 63,000 societies have gone live, which the project pages do not report.
• Whether any PACS runs a branded pigmy or daily-deposit scheme. We looked while building the glossary entry on PACS and found none, which is an absence of evidence rather than proof.
• What happens to the remaining PACS outside the 63,000.