Odisha govt cancels work order issued to TCS for e-governance project

The state IT department has cancelled the work order issued to IT bellwether Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for development of service delivery gate way and maintenance of state website, an e-governance project for offering public services.

" The work order issued to TCS has been cancelled after it failed to deposit its performance bank guarantee and Odisha Computer Application Centre has been requested to take further action for selection of an implementing agency as per guidelines" , said an official.

The project costing about Rs 13 crore was initially was awarded to HP which has emerged as L1 bidder. But after HP refused to agree with the terms and conditions of the project and showed unsatisfactory progress, the government had scrapped the contract with it and the project was handed over to second lowest bidder TCS.

After cancelling the work order of TCS now we will request Wipro, the L3 bidder, to match the price quoted by L1 i.e HP, added the official.

The aim of the project is to provide various types of public services such as education certificate and trade license through a single web portal, Odisha.gov.in.

Under the project, the selected company will have to develop a state service delivery gateway (SSDG) to perform the application of services, maintain the state portal and rollout e-forms for various services by using the data and information stored at the state data centre.

Officials say the project will provide easy, anywhere and anytime access to government services (both informational & transactional) and reducing number of visits of citizens to government offices and department for availing the services, among others, through the state portal.

Odisha has a plan to spend Rs 500 crore on e-governance projects since 2010 availing Centre and own fund.

Its major project involves e-district, which is currently being implemented in all districts for delivery of six services such as issue of death and birth certificate, caste certificate, residence certificate and income certificate.