Shonkh, Microsoft in e-governance tie-up

NEW DELHI: Information technology firm Shonkh Technologies Ltd. has tied up

with Microsoft to set up a center to develop and implement e-governance

solutions, the firm said on Wednesday.

Shonkh did not reveal the amount of revenues the firm expected from the

tie-up, but said indirect revenues would emanate from developing joint solutions

for banking, defence, industry and e-commerce related activities.

"The scope of the CoE (center of excellence) will include working on

newer operating systems, multilingual technologies and embedded systems," R

K Verma, Shonkh's chief technology officer told a news conference.

The center in Gurgaon, near Delhi, will also design a multilingual portal via

which a citizen can interact with the government in a local language but where

the back-end systems operate in English.

Microsoft's head for the northern region, Shailender Kumar, said:

"Although the tie-up is non-exclusive, Shonkh will implement and customize

Microsoft's generic solutions and we will have government penetration through

Shonkh."

The CoE will be set up at a cost of Rs 100 million ($2.14million) with Shonkh

providing the software, hardware and staff. It has started off with 30 people,

which will be increased to 200 within a year.

Microsoft will pool its technology platform and allow Shonkh access to its

consultants on a per project basis.

A bulk of Shonkh's revenues come from developing and manufacturing smart

cards for vehicle registrations and driver licenses for state governments.

It recently won a Rs 4.5 billion turnkey project spread over 15 years from

the western state of Gujarat to convert the state's old paper-based registration

certificates to smart cards.

At 3:10 p.m. (0940 GMT), Shonkh was quoting Rs 3.65 higher at Rs 281 on

volumes of 56,700 shares on the Bombay exchange. The calendar high for the stock

is Rs 463.30 and the low stands at Rs 204.65.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.