DoP to invest $1 Billion in IT infrastructure

Printer Print Email Email
Bangalore: In a bid to modernize its services by investing in Information Technology (IT), the Department of Posts (DoP) in India will be spending up to $1 billion over the next five years. The DoP has already short-listed Accenture, Ernst and Young, KPMG, McKinsey and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for this project. By the end of August, DoP will announce the selected tech vendors from the list. Leading technology companies like IBM, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro are also bidding for various outsourcing contracts to help the DoP automate and integrate its business processes with a standard software solution. Different vendors will be selected by DoP for system integration, software, data centers and network management. "Initially we were only looking at an IT revamp, but the scope is much bigger now with business process reengineering becoming a significant part of this entire exercise," said a senior DoP official to The Economic Times. The department was allocated around 2,000 crore under the Eleventh Plan by India's Planning Commission recently for different IT investments. The DoP is investing in IT infrastructure after noticing the inability of the currently used software solutions like Meghdoot, to deal with the growing needs of the Department. Meghdoot is a software application developed in-house that has been used by the DoP for over a decade now. With the government wanting to develop DoP as a well diversified services provider offering postal, insurance and financial solutions across remote parts of the country, there is a need to upgrade the systems. The department will also need a new corebanking software solution to improve its services. "We currently use Sanchay Post developed internally, but it has lived its life," said the DoP official. Apart from several outsourcing, system integration projects, the department will also need to invest in procuring computer hardware systems for modernization of around 1.55 lakh post offices across the country. "The government is now looking at post offices as a vehicle for distribution for different services, and therefore, it is critical for us to upgrade the infrastructure," said a government official involved with India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).