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Tech Mahindra will build and maintain an Enterprise Business System (EBS) to modernise and automate port processes for five central government-owned ports for Rs 350 crore including taxes in a first such outsourcing deal in the major ports.
Tech Mahindra won the contract on a tender issued by the Indian Ports Association (IPA) 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, reduction in manual intervention/documentation required, reduction in overall transaction time and costs, improve the efficiency of port operations, quick turn round of vessels and subsequent less dwell time, dashboard to ports/ministry of shipping for real-time management information system (MIS) on cargo/ship movements and export-import (EXIM) transactions, simplified and accelerated procedures for cargo entry, exit or transit and enhanced transparency across systems.
The project implementation and stabilisation period is twenty months and 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.
The proposed EBS will comprise three core solution components - port operations solution, standard ERP solutions and auxiliary solutions and would tightly integrate with the Port Community System (PCS) and other retained applications of ports, enterprise business standard processes and shared infrastructure on cloud, making it next generation modern system which will serve ports purpose in coming years.
The system would be driven by transparent, simple and error-free business processes, easily measured by clearly defined key performance indicators, use latest technology to achieve strategic business objectives and integrate seamlessly with prevalent systems and devices. The solution proposes a cafeteria approach for ports, which allows them to select the systems that they want to be implemented as per their needs. This model enables a minimal effort in a seamless manner if new ports opt to join the system in near future.
Other Central government ports such as Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Cochin Port Trust, New Mangalore Port Trust, Mormugao Port Trust, V O Chidambaranar Port Trust, Visakhapatnam Port Trust and Kamarajar Port Ltd already run an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system which they built on their own.
An official with one of the port trusts said that the staff strength at major port trusts will reduce further as 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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