Infosys Technologies, which bagged the eBiz Portal and the Income Tax CPC projects as part of the Rs 23,000-crore National e-governance Plan (NeGP), is eyeing other big-ticket IT contracts from government entities like the ministry of commerce and industry, ministry of home affairs, Accelerated Power Development Reform Program (APDRP), India Post, defence and the Unique Identity (UID) project. The company expects at least three of these large contracts to get finalised this year.
The eBiz portal is expected to formally launch the portal in April this year. The project comes under the Union commerce and industry ministry?s department of industrial policy and promotion (DPIP). Infosys would develop an eBiz portal which will work as a one-stop shop for providing efficient services to investors, businesses and industries. Among others, the portal will facilitate in registration, filing of forms, returns, payments, request for permissions? approvals, licences, seeking information and records and tracking of services provided by the projects..
Infosys? India business unit head Binod HR, said, ?We have already done a beta launch of eBiz Portal project in the five states namely Andra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Punjab in January this year. We are expecting the ministry to make a formal launch in the five states by April this year.? Infosys bagged the contract for about Rs 14.5 crore and the revenue flow is completely on transaction-based model.
For the $50 billion Indian software exports industry, the various e-governance projects in the country are a huge opportunity. Industry body Nasscom has projected that government IT spend in the country was around Rs 15,000 crore in 2009 and the business opportunity in e-Governance over next 3 years is worth $9 billion.
?The UID project is progressing well and we expect the contracts by APDRP and ministry of home affairs to be decided this year,? Binod said. The firm has recently bid for software development contract for the UID project. ?The software would largely interface with different recognitions like face, iris, finger print and generate a unique ID. We expect the implementation contracts to come out by the next financial year,? he added. In the Union Budget 2010-11, the government has allotted additional Rs 1,900 crore for the UID project.
The firm has also bid for end-to-end system integration contracts of APDRP in three states namely Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Punjab by Ministry of Power. Refusing to reveal the over-all size of these contracts he said, ?We expect the APDRP projects to be in the range of Rs 200-400 crore depending on the number of cities being covered in a particular state.? Under this contract the firm would be required to increase efficiency by brining down the aggregate technical and commercial losses faced by the Ministry of Power. The firm has already bagged an APDRP contract for Karnataka state worth Rs 386 crore.
According to Binod, additional spending by the government on modernisation of police force could surge contract sizes in the coming year. The firm has bid for projects to develop software for crime detection and data compilation by ministry of home affairs.