TCS to automate Karnataka treasury

BANGALORE, INDIA: India's top IT bellwether, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), on Tuesday signed a Rs 94-crore deal with the Karnataka government to automate its treasury and finance department operations.

“As per the six-year contract, TCS will set up the Khajane-II (treasury) system for integrated financial management of the state's expenditure and resources mobilisation,” state finance secretary L.V. Nagarajan told reporters here.

The project will replace the present Khajane-I system that was set up a decade ago.

“The upgraded system will address functional and technical constraints faced by the present system so as to enable dynamic fiscal management and convenience to the public, suppliers and employees,” Nagarajan said.

The features of the new system include generating daily accounts of the state government, online release of funds, salaries and about 90 per cent of payments made to contractors and suppliers through the electronic clearing system (ECS).

“Citizens will also be able to use the system for tax and non-tax payments, access on real-time information on receipts, funds released, scheme wise expenditure details and database on pensioners,” Nagarajan added.

According to TCS vice-president Tanmoy Chakraborty, a pilot project under the new system would be completed by April 2012 and the final project by April 2013.

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“When fully operational, Khajane-II will provide GIS-based MIS and dashboards for decision-makers, wherein implementation of government schemes and projects, in terms of funds utilised, can be monitored on a real-time basis,” Chakraborty noted.

The new system will also facilitate the state government to do away with a whopping eight million challans (vouchers) used currently for all types of transactions.

To make optimal and efficient use of the new system, all government employees concerned will be trained to make digital signatures in day-to-day operations.

Khajane-II will utilise the Karnataka State Wide Area Network (KSWAN) for connecting various government offices. The central data centre will be developed and deployed at the treasury network monitoring centre (TNMC) in the city centre.