Wipro Info issues first set of ESIC smart cards

BANGALORE, INDIA: The Union Minister for Labour & Employment Mallikarjun Kharge released the first Set of ‘PEHCHAN’ identity cards for distribution to the first 25 beneficiaries of Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) in Bangalore on Tuesday.

The identity cards were prepared and issued by Wipro Infotech, the India and West Asia IT business of Wipro under ESIC's 'Project Panchdeep'.

The ESI scheme is one of the largest social security schemes in the country covering over 12 million employees in the organised sector. The total number of beneficiaries who are receiving medical care under the scheme is almost 50 million. The scheme has 144 functioning hospitals and 1400 dispensaries to provide services to its beneficiaries, stated Kharge, while speaking on the occasion.

As the coverage under the scheme has been going up from year to year, the ESI Corporation decided on the implementation of an Information Technology Enabled plan to cover all aspects of the scheme so as to improve the efficiency and delivery of services to the insured persons.

The IT roll-out Plan named ‘Project Panchdeep’, was then assigned to Wipro Infotech under BOOT (Build, Own, Operate and Transfer) model. The vendor is expected to design the architecture, provide the hardware components, software solutions, networking, etc., and implement the solution to meet ESIC’s business needs. Around 2.40 crore Smart Cards would be prepared under this project.

Commenting on the development, Anand Sankaran, senior VP & head, India and Middle East, Wipro Infotech said, “It is the beginning of an era of digitized public health services to the masses. Our commitment to the project despite its scale has ensured that we have met the challenging deadline.”

The Project ‘PEHCHAN’ is one of the five main components of ‘Project Panchdeep’. The objective of PEHCHAN Project is to provide a pair of Magnetic Plastic Card to all the Insured Persons as well as to their family members.

It involves the preparation and distribution of Plastic Magnetic Cards called ‘Pehchan Identity Cards’ to all the insured person in place of existing paper based cards. Two identical cards shall be issued to the insured person and his family, which will enable them to avail of treatment anywhere in the country.

The minister also said that the medical treatment to the ESI beneficiaries is being given by state governments presently all over the country except Delhi and Noida. Nearly 87.5 per cent of total expenditure on medical treatment is being borne by the central government through the ESI Corporation. About 12.5 per cent of the remaining expenditure is borne by state governments.

The process of capturing the data for preparation of the Pehchan Cards has already begun in the States of Karnataka, U.P., and Delhi. The process will start in the remaining states shortly and shall be completed before August 2010. After the preparation and distribution of the Pehchan Cards, ESIC shall have a comprehensive data base consisting of the name, date of birth and address of the insured person, details of his family and the fingerprints of insured person and his family members.

The Pehchan Card is valid for lifetime across all ESIC hospitals and dispensaries in the country subject to certain conditions. A unique number will be assigned to each member so that he can continue using the Card even in case of a change in job.