CIL's Rs 686-cr project may be delayed

Implementation of Coal India's (CIL) Rs 686 crore Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions project is likely to be delayed following complaints from vendors over certain aspects of the tender documents.

CIL has sought help from the Vigilance Commission to get clarifications on the complaints received.

"We have received few complaints, including one from a leading IT major of the country on some aspects of the tender document. We have sent them to the Vigilance Commission to get clarifications," CIL Director (Technical) N C Jha told PTI.

The bids were supposed to be opened on December 28, but following the complaints, they have been kept on hold till the Vigilance Commission's nod.

So far, two bids had been submitted for the ERP implementation project, which will use a solution developed by German IT company SAP AG.

The project is intended to help Coal India improve IT infrastructure and the flow of information from its mines.

CIL currently operates 471 mines in 21 major coalfields across eight states in India, including 163 open cast mines, 273 underground mines and 35 mixed mines (both open cast and underground mines).

Implementation of the ERP solution will help Coal India reduce operational costs and improve labour productivity as its existing IT infrastructure is outdated and has several shortcomings, the tender document detailing the requirement of the project said.

Currently, many of the mines don't have network connectivity and CoalNet -- CIL's existing ERP application -- does not support operations like e-auction and a truck dispatch system, among other requirements, the document said.