Capgemini to bag rlys contract

Capgemini, the French information technology services and consulting major, has emerged as the lowest common bidder (L1) for the workshop management system project for Indian Railways.

The IT firm is understood to have secured the Rs 45-crore contract, following a fiercely-competed bidding process that saw the participation of six other companies, including HCL Technologies, Wipro, NIIT Technologies and L&T Infotech.

Indian Railways has been using its proprietary system for workshop management called Workshop Information SystEm (WISE-1). The system was developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), the IT arm of the Indian Railways.

The new system 1– WISE-II – aims at automating all 34 workshop maintenance sheds of the railways that do the overhauling and maintenance works of locomotives, carriages and wagons on a periodic basis. The project involves implementation of an enterprise resource planning-based system covering hardware, software, network rollout and support systems.

Capgemini, off late, has started focusing on the domestic IT outsourcing market in India that is largely dominated by global firms like IBM and HP, apart from Indian IT majors HCL, TCS and Wipro. In July last year, the company hired Ranjan Tayal, who was earlier heading the India and South Asia business unit of Satyam, to drive its India sales.

Indian Railways had floated the request for proposals (RFP) for the workshop management system contract in April-May this year. Seven IT players responded to the bid. After the technical evaluation, the bids of Mahindra Satyam and HP-EDS were rejected. The proof of concept for the project that requires the bidding firms to demonstrate their technology, was conducted two weeks ago.