NISG Co-ordination Failed; CBS Migration in Wrong Way

While reading the heading, somebody may think that what is NISG? And what the importance of NISG is in the CBS migration work of India Post.

The National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) is a non-profit company incorporated in 2002 by the Government of India to leverage private sector resources through a Public-Private-Partnership mode in establishing Digital India.

In the IT modernization project of India Post, NISG is entrusted with the duty of co-ordination of activities of various private companies participating in the project.  If we take the case of CBS migration work, the duty of NISG is to co-ordinate the work of Infosys and Sify for the effective and successful implementation of CBS in Post Offices.

There is no doubt that the implementation is happening on a larger scale but the question is whether it is in the right way or not.  Answer is very simple and everyone knows it. If you think that the implementation is in wrong way, here arises the question about co-ordination.

Actually no co-ordination is happening from the part of NISG especially in Kerala Circle.  Post Office staffs are unaware of this institution and its role.  They are simply cursing Sify if they don’t have proper connectivity and the System Administrators cursing Infosys if it drops any migrated office on the GoLive date.  After reading this article, you will include NISG too in this list.

Sify and Network Integration

We admit that, NISG has the limited power in controlling the entire activity. But they could have been contributed much more in the root level activities.  If we consider a Post Office, the work of NISG starts just before installing the network equipment in the Post Office.  The responsibility of NISG in the Network Integration process has been completely forgotten by its staffs even if it has been clearly defined.

There was no co-ordination at the time of installation of Network equipment.  Sify has given a subcontract for fixing racks in Post Offices and the vendor who got the work acted according to their will and skill. Before giving sign off, Infosys compensated the vendor and disposed the contract. In this phase NISG was acted as a silent spectator.

According to the Directorate instructions, before giving sign off by concerned Post Office or Division after Sify migration, NISG Team should have visited the location to ensure the effectiveness of Network Integration.  But no NISG staff has visited any office for this purpose.

Sify used this lapse from the part of NISG effectively in all the subsequent stages.

Sify WAN connectivity is the preliminary prerequisite for selecting a location for CBS migration.  But non-Sify migrated offices are also selected for CBS migration.  Some offices have migrated to CBS and even after two weeks they cannot even login to Finacle due to non-availability of Sify connection. 

Were NISG officials sleeping at the time of taking such decisions? Who is responsible for the public complaints happening at such offices? Will India Post or Sify or NISG or Infosys compensate customers for the inconvenience or loss happened due to non-working of SB branches at these offices.

Manual Data Entry (MDE)

While coming to Manual Data Entry (MDE) for digitization of manual records, the lack of co-ordination can be seen everywhere.  Like earlier said Rack fitting job, Infosys has given a subcontract for data entry and they also have done the work according to their will.

The data entry work was completed by violating all the boundaries.  Office records were scanned and taken out of the office and the data entry work was done in the office premise of vendor.  In this phase no one has come forward to protect the interest of Depositors.  Even after completion of data entry work, vendor can use the scanned copy of documents for malpractices in future.

Infosys has given importance only for the numbers of manual records not its accuracy. So they have not insisted the vendor to prepare the MDE database with accuracy.  Post office staffs were forced to correct the entire mistake committed by the vendors of Infosys.

In majority of Offices, the address fields are updated with Post Office name and in some other cases name and address fields are updated with word “Malayalam” if the original application forms are filled with Malayalam language.  In some offices, 50% records are updated with word “Malayalam” in all text portions.

Another mistake happened due to lack of co-ordination was excess payment due to excess data entry.  In majority of offices while digitizing certificates, the data entry operators made data entry for all applications including already available in the Sanchay Post. In some cases, for digitizing 100 NSC registrations they have entered 400 registrations including 300 registrations already available in the Sanchay Post. The excess records would be deleted at the time of verification or at the time of migration but Infosys had already compensated for these excess data entry.

Dropping of Migration

So many questions will arise if anything happens wrong from the part of Postal staffs in connection with CBS migration. And much type of explanations may be sought. The practice of dropping offices after completing the migration work by System Administrators is common these days.  But official explanation for the reason for such dropping will not be intimated.  Even NISG officials have no idea about the actual reasons for dropping of offices.

If it is due to the mistake of Infosys or due to the lack of co-ordination from any part, officers of India Post will be silent. Allotting huge number of offices for migration without assessing the volume of data or without understanding the time constraint and other limitations of DMCC may be the actual reason for dropping of migrated offices.  This is another lapse of NISG as a coordinator. 

Since authority and responsibility is applicable in all levels, it is the responsibility of officers to inquire and find out the actual reasons for dropping and communicate it to the root level. Otherwise the morale of officials who wholeheartedly worked day-night for CBS migration will be lost.

Conclusion

Lots of big projects are yet to be started in India Post.  So the mistakes will not be repeated in future if the Department of Post will decide to educate its employees of all levels about the role and responsibilities of each institution participating in various projects and to make the employee capable enough to achieve what is good for India post.