A mere click of a mouse can tell a project director sitting in say faraway Bangalore, the financial and disbursement status of any externally aided project in the country. Gone are the days when he would have to wait for days or even months to get any information on the financial status of his project.
Welcome to the world of Aid Accounts and Audit Division in the Ministry of Finance, referred to as the AAAD. All you have to do is type www.finmin.nic.in/CAAA and you enter a storehouse of information on externally aided loans and grants that the Government of India has entered through bilateral and multilateral agreements.
A 100 per cent automated office where figures are updated on a daily basis, AAAD is responsible for drawing, accounting for, managing and servicing loans taken from various multilateral and bilateral funding organizations. These aids are not utilized or disbursed at one go, but, at various stages of the project. It is AAAD’s responsibility to maintain and control the accounts.
“The computerization and our accounting processes are unique in so far as the Government of India is concerned. It is the single accounting office for external assistance receipts of the borrowings of the GOI,” said Mr Shanker Banerjee, Controller, Aid Accounts and Audit Division.
Started in the 1990s, the organization went in for complete computerization following a feasibility study done by A. F. Ferguson in 1998. By 2007 it had fully dispensed with the old system.
The Integrated Computerized System or the ICS is designed such that any processing done through it, immediately updates the status with various facilities. Since these updations are done automatically, the scope of manual errors and mistakes are minimized.
Today, the AAAD handles more than 25 multilateral and bilateral funding agencies that provide external assistance through more than 360 active loan/credits/grants.
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