The GHMC’s entire IT infrastructure, hardware as well as software, is up for a major revamp, with a private firm, Trimex, identified as the lowest bidder quoting Rs. 33.86 crore for the systems-integrated project spread over five years, senior officials revealed.
The implementation of ‘Holistic & Integrated Greater Hyderabad EGovernance Solution’ means the agency has to do a complete study of the civic body’s programme and redevelop the entire software so that all wings are integrated. The agency has to procure, install, design, configure, customise and provide end-to-end hardware and software solutions. It also has to offer on-site training to the municipal staff for a period of one year and three months with the help of its own support staff, besides maintaining the system being put in place for the contract period, they said.
An empowered technical committee consisting of senior officials of various departments has vetted the technical bids and is slated to finalise the financial bids soon. In effect, the process for modern systems integration for the GHMC was initiated a couple of years ago following a Central government grant, and after several twists and turns involving other departments, it has now reached a decisive stage.
Altogether, there are nearly 39 modules dealing with property tax, town planning, health and sanitation, parks, sports, administration, advertising, street-lighting, procurement, transport and so on, with each of them being linked to the other. Currently, most departments, though computerised, are standalone systems, and the effort is to interlink them; for instance, town planning wing records will be made available to tax authorities.
“Once implemented, it will be easy for officials to plug the revenue gaps in the system as each module will be talking to the other,” said senior officials. Till such time the new IT infrastructure is in place in phases, the old system will continue.
However, the newly installed round-the-clock call centre and the Off Site Real Time (OSRT) online monitoring system will remain independent under the existing modules though linked to the new systems till their respective contract periods are over.
Senior municipal officials insisted that the BOT (build, operate & transfer) project was favourable to the civic body since it would be paying 40 per cent in the first year (about Rs. 14 crore) and the rest spread over the next four years on a monthly basis. IT major Wipro is the project management consultant, they added.
