Tech Mahindra will build and maintain an enterprise business system (EBS) to modernise and automate port processes at five Central government-owned ports for ₹350 crore including taxes. This is the first such outsourcing deal in the major ports.

Tech Mahindra won the contract on a tender issued by the Indian Ports Association to build a common shared platform on behalf of Kolkata Port Trust, Paradip Port Trust, Chennai Port Trust, Mumbai Port Trust and Deendayal Port Trust (formerly Kandla Port Trust), the Shipping Ministry said.

The EBS is aimed at improving India’s ranking in ease of doing business, enabling faster request processing in delivery of services with better turnaround time and reduction in manual intervention/documentation required. It is also expected to reduce transaction time and costs, improve the efficiency of port operations, help in quick turnround of vessels and, subsequently, lesser dwell time, offer a dashboard to ports/Shipping Ministry for a real-time management information system (MIS) on cargo/ship movements and export-import transactions, facilitate simplified and accelerated procedures for cargo entry, exit or transit, and enhance transparency across systems.

The project implementation and stabilisation period is 20 months; operations and maintenance support is for five years.

Tech Mahindra will partner with SAP, Envision, CISCO, Dell and RTCom to roll out the EBS for the five port trusts.

Core solution components

The proposed EBS will comprise three core solution components — port operations solutions, standard ERP solutions and auxiliary solutions. It will integrate with the Port Community System and other retained applications of the ports, enterprise business standard processes and shared infrastructure on cloud.

Cafeteria approach

The solution proposes a ‘cafeteria’ approach for ports, which allows them to select the systems that they want.

Other Central government ports such as Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Cochin Port Trust, New Mangalore Port Trust, Mormugao Port Trust, VO Chidambaranar Port Trust, Visakhapatnam Port Trust and Kamarajar Port Ltd already run ERP systems which they built on their own.

An official with one of the port trusts said the staff strength at major port trusts will decline further as hiring of personnel for doing repetitive jobs will stop. The Shipping Ministry has frozen recruitment of workers at Class 3 level for more than a decade.

“Employee strength will come down further as repetitive jobs will get computerised. The beauty of ERP is that it gives end-to-end solutions as all departments will get integrated, making information and data readily available resulting in easier decision-making,” the official said.

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