Bharti, IBM offer to wire up govt deptts

NEW DELHI: With the proof of concept in place, Bharti Airtel and IBM are betting big on the Indian government. The success of Taxnet, which on completion will connect 745 IT departments in 510 cities, is pushing many ministries to wire their offices nationally.

Highly-placed sources said that the two companies which have a common “go-to-market strategy” in India, are in advanced talks with many ministries for creating similar nationwide networks. The deals could be worth millions of dollars, given that a single Taxnet deal of the ministry of finance was pegged at Rs 240 crore.

Consider the functionality of “Taxnet” and is a clean give-away as to why other ministries want similar networks. For the first time ever, Taxnet will help over 13,000 IT officials access data from a centralised network as this will bring the Department’s National Data Centre on a central platform.

Besides, this network will also be used for other services such as e-delivery of tax services, filing of returns, PAN migration and checking status of all records, in addition to providing video-conferencing facilities between the offices.

When contacted, Jai Menon, director-IT and innovation, group CIO, Bharti Airtel, said: “We are in talks, but we can’t comment on the ministries involved or on the nature of the deals.”

Speaking on the similar lines, Shankar Anna Swami, country head, IBM, said: “Since we have a “go-to-the market” alliance with Bharti, at any point of time, we are in talks with numerous players. However, on this particular issue, we can’t comment.”

Sources added that other IT majors such as Wipro and TCS were also in the running, along with Bharti-IBM to bag contracts to connect government ministries.

Meanwhile, in a related development, Bharti Airtel on Thursday announced that it has partnered with IBM to deliver India’s first ‘Service Delivery Platform’(SDP).

“Airtel is investing over $100m in this world-class delivery platform, and this will enable it to deliver a suite of unique, innovative products, services and applications, to its over 25m customers spanning mobile, landline and broadband services,” said Manoj Kohli, president, Bharti Airtel.