Rahul Gupta
NEW DELHI: The Centre has started implementing egovernance solutions at its
ministries. The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has started computerization of its
Principal Accounts Offices (PAOs) ever since the finance minister’s
announcement that egovernance project in his departments would go on till March
2002.
As information technology is becoming a strategic resource to the government
accounts, computerization of PAO offices had been one of the priority areas. TGK
India, an IT systems company bagged the contract in June this year for
implementation of a solution called PAO-2000 in 108 PAOs. The cost of this
project is around Rs 30 lakh.
MoF has to computerize 289 PAOs under 32 civil ministries all over India. TGK
has got a contract to implement PAO-2000 developed by the NIC, by March 2002 in
108 PAOs in Delhi alone. The solution helps in capturing accounts data from the
original source.
As the deadline is closing in, the task seems difficult for TGK. Sanjay
Singh, general manager, TGK India, said, "Although we were told to complete
the job by March 2002, it is almost impossible to do so as implementing and
testing are a time-taking process. Also, the functioning of government
departments is entirely different from that of corporate."
He said that many ministries did not have hardware and software required to
implement the solution. "It's impossible to complete it before December
2002." he insisted.
TGK has also been entrusted with the task of implementing, training,
computerizing and supporting the 108 PAOs. The company would implement them in
35 locations in its first phase of operation. It would also provide technical
support for PAO-2000 for different sites that includes the system support for
Windows 2000/NT and databases support for relational database management
systems.
PAO-2000 generates monthly, consolidated accounts data in the electronic
format for in-corporation at the Principal Accounts Office in the CONTACT
software database. CONTACT software consolidates accounts daily or weekly, on a
preset frequency.
It also generates various managerial reports for expenditure analysis. One of
the most important features of this software is the generation of cheques for
payment on pre-printed stationery issued by the RBI.