India Post, TCS to sign Rs 1,400 cr IT deal on Monday

 IT major TCS has bagged the Rs 1,400-crore project of India Post for computerising counter operations and the two parties will sign a pact on Monday, a top government official has said.

     
The project is divided into two parts --two years for implementation and five years of maintenance."We will sign agreement with TCS on Monday for computerising counter operations under core system integration of India Post. Around Rs 1,400 crore has been earmarked for the project," Department of Post Secretary P Gopinath told PTI.

     
The government has approved Rs 4,909 crore for phase II of modernisation of post offices under which the department is gearing up for providing real time core banking services as well.

     
The Indian IT companies, which earn major part of their revenues from foreign markets especially the US and Europe, are betting big on the domestic government projects.

     
TCS had also bagged the mission mode e-governance project and Passport Seva Project from the MEA in October, 2008.

     
Infosys has bagged a 700-crore project that would help India Post transform its banking and insurance operations cross 1,50,000 post offices in the country. 

The Department of Post has started deploying moderntechnology solution to develop core banking capability across post offices. As part of modernisation, it has set a deadline of March 31 to computerise all department post offices.

   
 The IT modernisation project approved the Cabinet was divided in three parts: Pilot, Phase I and Phase II.

In phase 1, DoP has to roll out modern IT solution in six circles namely, Assam, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

The project included computerisation of all post offices, core banking solutions including installation of 1000 ATMs, mail tracking, customer service call center and introducing eCommerce solution, handheld devices for post masters for update on services like mails, money order etc.

   
Some activities like installation of ATMs under Phase 1 are yet to be completed by the department.

Under phase II of the IT project, DoP has plans to roll out modern IT solution in rest of the country.