TCS iON to add 200,000 seats across 200 centres

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TCS iON, a unit of Tata Consultancy Services that provides cloud-based solutions to examination boards, will create 200,000 seats in 200 new centres, including its biggest facility in Kolkata.

TCS iON, a strategic unit of TCS, focuses on educational institutions and exam boards with cloud-based solutions. It offers technology-led solutions for small and medium businesses, educational institutions and exam boards to digitise examinations in India.

Speaking on the sidelines of launching a new centre at Chennai, V Ramaswamy, Global Head, TCS iON said that assessment has been a 'pain point' for various exam conducting bodies across the nation. The challenges include the time to declare results, errors in results, malpractice attempts etc.

IN EXPANSION MODE

• TCS iON platform is curently being used by a number of corporates as well as railways, banks and public sector undertakings
   
• So far, the company has conducted examinations for the IITs, AIIMS. CMC, Vellore,
   
• Over the next year, TCS iON plans to add 200,000 seats across its 200 new centres
   
• Of the 200 new centres, 12-15 will be TCS centres and the rest will be operated by entrepreneurs

Rough estimate is that around 25-30 billion assessments happens in manual mode in the country.

Government and academic institutions are placing major emphasis to make exams more digital to address the above said challenges. TCS has put together a platform in the last three years, now it is expanding the physical infrastructure to support the digital platform.

TCS iON plans to set up around 200 new centres, of which around 12-15 would be TCS centres. TCS iON would work with entrepreneurs, who will set up the centre, while TCS would give them business.

While declining to give any investment numbers, Ramaswamy said that setting up a 250-computer centre unit would cost around Rs 1 crore.

The Chennai facility, spread over 38,000 sq.ft, will be second signature facility (set up by TCS directly) after Noida. The new facility will have a capacity of 1,500+ seats. TCS iON already has its own facility at Noida, which got 3,000 seats capacity. Today, around 200,000 candidates, on a single shift (duration of exam), across the country can take up exams thorugh TCS iON platform or infrastructure.

TCS iON has been working closely with several large customers to redefine the process of conducting examinations to deliver a superior experience for candidates and assure a fair and secured assessments to exam conducting boards.

He claims the centre can declare results (raw scores) on the same night of the exams getting conducted. The process in traditional mode would take atleast nine months.

The two key segments that TCS iON caters to are academic and recruitment (including banks, Railways, PSUs, MetroRail and others) .

"We are still a business unit, we have put cutting edge platform. you cant look as per centage of TCS since its completely new. We will contribute significantly to TCS. This is aligned to TCS strategy to grow our digital footprint and digital technology. This runs on TCS IP and many of these solutions are patented or patent pending," he added.

TCS iON has conducted examinations for institutions like IIT, All India Institute Of Medical Science (AIIMS), Christian Medical College, Vellore (CMC), Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK), Educational Consultants India Limited (EdCil), Institute of Banking Personnel Selection(IBPS) and Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research(JIPMER).