Oracle’s 13 cr project for Govt has 'collapsed'

NEW DELHI: Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corp was told by a Government official that “the Oracle database had totally collapsed”. This complaint was raised by the Dr Vishwapati Trivedi, commissioner of commercial taxes with the Madhya Pradesh government about its database system which was installed just two months ago. The system, which was installed by CMC Corp at a cost of Rs 13 crore at Indore has stopped working. The official complained that it was disappointed with the slack manner in which Oracle responded to its complaint.

Taken aback, Ellison responded that the fault could have been because of the code written by the application provider and not because of Oracle’s product. Speaking to the media later, Oracle India MD Shekhar Dasgupta said that the company has been working with the customer for over five weeks now and is committed to solving the problem to the satisfaction of the client.

Ellison was talking to a global audience, though videoconferencing from his headquarters in California. He announced the setting up of a a e-gov center of excellence (CoE) at Gurgaon. Interestingly, the stakeholders in the project include CMC. Others are NIC, IIM Ahmedabad, and IISc Bangalore.

Ellison also said, “Just as governments around the world are hard pressed to provide quality service, Indian government sooner than later would come under similar pressure.” He took the line that good governance would accelerate the country’s progress as it would impact all the players involved which are citizens and businesses. “The more the government automates, the greater will be the level of transparency and accountability,” he added.

(CNS)