Spanco receives order of over 1.8 crore cards holders

Mumbai, Mar 31 (UNI) Spanco Telesystems and Solutions, one of the leading System Integration&BPO companies in India, has bagged an order of over 1.8 crore card holders, to completely overhaul the operation of the Public Distribution System from the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection (FCS &CP) Department, Government of Maharashtra.

The scheme has been designed to ensure that the right beneficiary avails the desired amount of food grains and other benefits. The entire rationing system in the state will undergo a sea change with the issuing of over 1.8 crore computerized Bar Code based laminated ration cards to every household.

Talking to reporters here today, on the occasion, Spanco Chairman and Managing Director Kapil Puri said, ''We are proud to partner with the Government of Maharashtra on a project like this which will benefit households across the length and breadth of the state. It has been our constant endeavour to provide innovative and holistic solutions for complex issues.'' The project will be completed in 3 years and cover 1,06,740 fair price shops, 354 taluka supply offices, 33 district supply offices, 5 regional offices and 44 rationing offices across Maharashtra.

All the FCS offices will have to be given a desktop computer alongwith printers, scanners and 33 application software modules will have to be developed and integrated. All the fair price shops shall be issued with point of sale terminals having smart card, magnetic stripe and bar code readers to read the computerized ration card. The transaction done at the ration shop shall be stored in the POS terminal and uploaded to the data center in regular intervals.

Approximately 900 GPS instruments shall be fitted in the vehicles, carrying food grains from FCI godown to State godown and they will be tracked from the data center, so that pilferage can be stopped. The entire solution shall be designed by using centralized Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and all the applications will be hosted from the data center.

Spanco has partnered with Mastek in this project for developing the entire application software. Spanco will deploy a manpower of approximately 1,100 across the state to run the project and an additional 1,500 manpower shall be deployed to do the data entry and digitization of all the existing 1.8 crore beneficiary records to complete the entire scope of work and make the system live within 8 months of signing the contract.

The beneficiary/household will avail the computerized Ration card and pay a nominal fee fixed by the department for it. The fees for various types of cards like, Annapurna, Antyordaya, BPL, APL and White, shall be notified by the Government through a gazette notification.

On the sideline of launching of new technology, the Spanco Telesystem Vice President Ravi Bhatnagar told UNI that it has received three Letters of Intent (LoIs) worth Rs 165.53 crore.

Spanco has been awarded a LOI by Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department, Govt of Maharashtra as sole and total solutions provider for computerisation of the entire rationing system in the state and to issue ration cards on Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) basis. The project duration will be for a period of three years.

The total value of the project would be about Rs 125 crore.

The second LOI has been awarded by ITI, Bhopal for implementing computerisation programme/package for Registration and Stamps Department, Madhya Pradesh, worth Rs 20.45 crores.

The third LOI is from Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation for supply, installation, implementation, commissioning, operations and maintenance of Network and other passive equipments of Modernisation of Prison-Security (MoP) across 53 jails of Bihar on BOOT basis for a period of five years.

The total value of the project would be about Rs 20.08 crores, Mr Bhatnagar added.

UNI AR SR AG1631