HCL Info may bag Rs 600-cr contract

HCL Infosystems, an information technology (IT) hardware and services provider, is understood to have pipped the country’s largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), to clinch an e-governance contract from the Madhya Pradesh government.

The government is soon expected to award the contract to HCL Info, which has emerged as the lowest commercial bidder. HCL Infosystems quoted about 30 per cent lower than TCS. HCL Info, according to sources familiar with the development, had formed a consortium with Virgo Softech and Accor Services to bid for the project. The five-year project, pegged at around Rs 600 crore, aims at automating the public distribution system (PDS) in the state.

ITC Infotech, an arm of tobacco-to-hotel conglomerate ITC, also competed for the contract. However, the ITC Infotech bid was not opened due to technical reasons.

HCL Info could not be reached for comment.

The tender was floated last December by the department of food, civil supplies and consumer protection of the MP government. It is understood that six companies participated in the bidding process. After initial screening and verification, only three companies were shortlisted.

The state government plans to issue biometric-based food coupons to beneficiaries to contain fraud and leakage, quite common in the PDS. India distributes commodities worth more than Rs 30,000 crore a year to about 160 million families through more than 4,62,000 fair price shops (FPS). However, the PDS is plagued by a number of issues, including leakage of food grains and duplicate or bogus ration card holders.

Studies by the National Council for Applied Economic Research, ORG-MARG, Planning Commission and the Wadhwa committee on the public distribution system, had pointed out a number of anomalies in it.

The project by the Madhya Pradesh government aims at strengthening the PDS to ensure adequate and timely supplies, targeting of subsidiaries and efficient delivery of subsidised food. The government also plans to address manipulations in transactions at fair price shops and automate reporting of lifting details at fair price shops and godowns on a real time basis.

According to the contract, the software vendor will create a solution, which will be integrated with the FCS-used software solution for godowning.

“According to our estimate, about 20 per cent of the ration card holders in the state are holding bogus or duplicate ration cards. Based on a pilot project done by us about six months back, we are using the biometric based identification system to identify the genuine beneficiaries and remove the anomalies in the system. The whole project is about empowering the consumers who will now encash the food coupons given to them as a part of the project at ration shops and take their monthly quota, thus ending any duplication,” Ajit Kesari, Commissioner of Food and Civil Supplies Department, Madhya Pradesh Government, told Business Standard.