Wipro?s prestigious R1,182 crore e-governance contract from the Employees? State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) has run into rough weather. ESIC, a health insurer under the ministry of labour and employment, has said that its portals are facing technical problems that have caused inconvenience to users.
In a message to employers registered under the ESI Act 1948, the body noted that it had rolled out its IT project Panchdeep to empower users. ?You may have been facing serious issues in using the portals due to technical problems. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused to you. We hope to restore the facility or provide alternative to you very shortly,? ESIC said in an advertisement published in several newspapers on Saturday. Separately, an ESIC official, who did not want to be identified, told FE that there were several issues with the project and Wipro was working with the agency to close the loopholes.
ESIC is the implementing agency of a social security scheme that provides cover to over one crore industrial workers and their family members in India. After a closely fought bidding war with TCS, Wipro Infotech, the India and Middle East business of Wipro, had bagged the six-year project in February 2009.
It mandated streamlining of registration filings and payouts across hospitals and regional centres.
Anand Sankaran, senior VP and business head of Wipro Infotech, accepted that there were technical issues with the project. ?Employers are paying insurance premiums and getting a chalan for it for the last six months. While the system has been in operation, we have come across an unexpected technical problem, which has affected the functioning of the Insurance portal. The performance of the portal is slow. It is a normal technical problem and there is nothing alarming. We have put the best of technical resources working on the problem. It should be resolved soon,? he told FE.
The e-governance project, one of the largest in the country, was a showpiece project for Wipro and also a case study. The project involved networking of 144 hospitals, 1,388 dispensaries, 620 branch offices, 40 regional offices and 27 state directorates. Wipro also had to set up the centralised data centre, disaster recovery and computing infrastructure besides providing services related to IT support and medical information system for all ESIC hospitals and dispensaries. The contract also involved providing services related to ERP, finance, HR, legal, procurement and health insurance modules.
The project, said a Wipro employee, who did not want to be identified, was on course till even two months back. The firm was, in fact, contemplating making a press announcement about the successful roll out of the programme. The modules developed by Wipro were reviewed by a committee formed by the director-general of ESIC in March this year.