Implementation woes a glitch in govt IT projects

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Implementation woes a glitch in govt IT projects

Inadequate planning, shoddily maintained systems and lack of technological knowledge are putting speed breakers on the Indian government's ambitious IT overhaul programme and are in turn becoming a major challenge at the execution level.

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Inadequate planning, shoddily maintained systems and lack of technological knowledge are putting speed breakers on the Indian government's ambitious IT overhaul programme and are in turn becoming a major challenge at the execution level.

For Indian IT companies, the government's billion-rupee projects are much needed as they are looking at ways to make good for sagging overseas revnue. These projects hold the key to retaining their profitability.

"The bigger issue is manning the change," says Arvind Thakur, chief executive at NIIT Technologies Ltd, which had recently executed an e-procurement tool for the Indian Ordnance Factory Board that buys defence hardware and equipment for the country's armed forces.

NIIT gets about 7-8% of its revenue from government contracts.

"In such a change, you need the involvement of the decision makers and the line managers, who are not necessarily very tech-savvy," Thakur said.

NIIT is not alone. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's top software services exporter, also believes boosting the technology literacy of the government staff is key to better execution of government projects.

"Unlike enterprise services, government projects tend to have wide disparities in the infrastructure-base and resources distribution," said Tanmoy Chakrabarty, vice-president & head of government industry solutions unit of TCS.

"Also, the impact of public services has a longer gestation period as compared to a corporate environment. This tends to be an integral challenge in project execution," Chakrabarty said in an emailed response.

Farid Kazani, chief financial officer at Mastek Ltd, said the Indian government is rigid about commercial terms of contracts, unclear about the requirements of the project and needs to improve its planning.

Databases are incomplete and employees are not sufficiently trained in handling technology, Kazani added.

"It is quite different from where the other developed nations are," he said. Mastek gets 23% of its revenue from the government vertical, most of it from the UK.

"So most of the times, either we end up with a time over-run or a cost overrun on India projects," he said. "We generally don't face these kinds of problems in the UK."

Another bigger risk is getting dragged into corruption scandals. A case in point being HCL Infosystems ' contract with MTNL.

The Central Bureau of Investigation alleged the contract, part of the corruption-ladden Delhi Commonwealth Games, was awarded at an "exorbitant price" and had probed some officials of the companies.

In a newsletter in May, the National Association of Software & Services Companies (NASSCOM) had flagged several challenges threatening the robust pace of growth in government contracts for IT firms.

"Some projects have failed or been shelved because of flaws at different stages: their conceptualisation, scope definition, vendor selection and poor execution due to shortcomings both on the government and the implementing vendor's side," the industry body said.