FINACLE CBS push us in DEBACLE ; NFPE writes to DIRECTORATE for RESCUE
NATIONAL
FEDERATION OF POSTAL EMPLOYEES
1st Floor, North
Avenue Post office Building, New Delhi - 110001
Ref: PF/NFPE/CBS Dated – 27.06.2014
To
Ms Kaveri Banerjee
Secretary
Department of Posts
Dak Bhawan, New Delhi – 110001
Madam,
Sub: - Incalculable
miseries and untold suffering to the operative staff in CBS rolled out offices
– Immediate remedial and rescue operations sought for – reg.
At the outset, we appreciate the
efforts leads to technological advancements and extend our fullest cooperation
in the journey to reach the desired goals of implementing innovative customer
centric services and operational efficiency enhancement by inducting state of
art technology.
But to our dismay, the CBS
migrated offices are now facing incalculable miseries and untold sufferings due
to lack of adequate network capabilities and software support of the vendors.
The following are the issues to be set right in war foot manner at the initial
stage itself otherwise leads to garboil and distress among the stake holders especially
among the working staff.
1)
Insufficient bandwidth Network:
Providing
of strong and stable network is base of successful implementation of India Post
project. Now almost all HOs have been
given 2 MBPS bandwidth line, LSG SOs 512 KBPS line and B and C class offices
have been given 256 KBPS line. If ‘India Post Project-2012’ is fully
implemented, all the work of Post Offices will depend on these network. Present
bandwidth speed is very less and due to low bandwidth, Finacle page is either
not opening and some time opening very
slowly. Due to this PO staff are forced
to work up to night 10 pm many days. In many occasions in every CBS migrated
office, the ‘Login’ is inconsistent and for each transaction “Login” is forced.
If CSI and PLI are migrated and placed on this network the
situation may further worsen. Hence we request to provide at least 4 MB
bandwidth line to HOs, 2 MB bandwidth line to LSG SOs and 1 MB bandwidth line
to B and C class offices.
2) Failure of Sify:
In India
Post Project 2012, NI Vender is Sify. On observation of quality and quantity of
service being provided by them it is very much proved that M/S Sify is incapable to give service to
this big department. They do not have sufficient skilled manpower
and it seems that they are not intending to give good quality service
also. At initial stage itself they have
not made proper survey of all offices.
Before installing and commissioning they were very keen on taking
installation report from concerned Postmasters/Sub Postmasters.
It is
told that, as per MOU, all offices should be provided with NSP-1 and NSP-2
lines. In almost all offices, NSP-1 is
BSNL line and NSP-2 is either Sify line or Airtel datacard. It is observed that in many offices they
have installed Airtel datacard ,where as
Airtel signal is not available at
that place.
It is
also observed that M/S Sify is not recharging Airtel datacard installed.
Instead they are recharging on receipt of complaint from concerned
offices. By doing this they are deviating
from MOU and leaving the staff in the field in distress.
3) Finacle Problem:
If we
come to Finacle part, it is another tragedy.
Initially it was boosted that Finacle is fully foolproof software and
successfully implemented in many banks.
We could not understand why Infosys is not utilizing experience gained
in banks and implementing here.
There are so many bugs in the software and more surprisingly even after lapse of 6 months of
implementation, nothing is changed. All
the issues raised at the time of January-2014 is still not resolved. Moreover Finacle server becomes inaccessible
many time in peak business hours or responds very slow. It is a naked truth
that we are losing clientle and distancing from the customers only due to
faulty service of vendors.
4) Lack of Guidance:
No
separate rulings are received to suit Finacle Environment. No authorities are
giving authoritative guidance on many issues.
For example
§
Role of SOSB in HO
after implementation of Finacle at SOs,
§
Role of SBCO at HO
§
Fate of manual
records on transfer accounts from one Finacle office to other etc.
5) Supply of
Printers and Computers:
At
initial stage new Computers and printers
are supplied to pilot offices. Rest of
the offices are having more than 5 year
old Computers and Printers which are not suitable to present
scenario. Administration is
pressing hard to migrate offices without
supplying required hardware. The old computers and peripherals either to be
revamped or replaced to make it compatiable to the present environment.
6) Problem of User
credentials:
One each
User credential is given to trained
staff. But it is not clearly told what
action to be taken while SPM/PA goes on leave especially in B class
offices. As sharing of user credential is very risky and dangerous, alternative
arrangement should be made immediately.
7) Due to slow network and
frequent failure of server customers of the department are frustrated and
moving out the department and needed immediate attention.
8. You may aware that we are
struggling with outdated Computers and peripherals, which were purchased during
the year 2000 to 2005 and immediate supply of needy new hardware to ensure the
technological transformation in and effective manner.
9. Even proper up gradation of
CPU is not made in many areas and the Software loaded is upto Windows XP in
most of the offices. Presently it is a fact that windows XP is not supported by
the Microsoft with updates.
10. Finacle can be better loaded
with Windows 7 and hence the officers at ground level are pressurized to use
pirated version of Windows 7, which may lead to litigation with Microsoft apart
from non supporting with updates.
11. The MOU made with M/s Sify,
for net work integration is limiting to low bandwidth such as 256 Kbps to 512
Kbps in many areas, serving with 1 server and 4 to 5 nodes, resulting in
sluggish connectivity and takes hours together to transform the data. This
results in hang over and the transactions could not be able to be made at the
instant, as the Department expects, It requires atleast 2 to 4 Mbps and M/s
Sify refused to increase the bandwidth now.
12. Further in the Data Centre,
it requires to the level of 400 Mbps on the Network to receive the Data
transmitted at a time from all the 680 offices but Sify is learnt to be
provided with a minimum of 200 Mbps capacity. This affects the receipt of data from
the end users at a time and take hours to complete the process. Further
expansion is required when there is further migration.
13. The area of occupation in the
main server at Mumbai maintained by M/S Reliance Ltd. is also not sufficient,
which results in sluggish transmission of data from the entire 680 offices at
present, at a time and even the validation cannot be made before 8:00 PM or
10:00 PM on all the days.
14. End of day process cannot be
made even on daily basis and the staff have to wait for the nod from the
Infosys even after midnights on several days and at times it can be made on the
next day morning. Even the women employees are compelled to complete the EOD
process in midnights and their husbands or wards waiting till midnights to take
them to home.
15. Even the Help desk provided
is not answering and the end users are taken to task and receiving brick bats
from the irate public.
16. This results in closing of
accounts in large numbers that too, can be made not on the date of presentation
but after few days and our Department looses large chunk of customers, because
of the miscalculations, wrong estimations and over ambitious activities and
inadequate technological support.
17. Even the first and
prestigious ATM of our Department unveiled by the ex Finance Minister Sri. P.
Chidambaram at T. Nagar HO is not functioning from the date of installation and
only 10 ATM cards are supplied on the first instant, that too only to the staff
and some friendly users of T. Nagar HPO. But the ATM is provided with 24x7 A/C
and a paid Guard, making huge loss to the Department and receiving severe
criticism from the Print media.
18. The women employees should be
relieved from this area of operation, till the situation improves, in order to
avoid late night stays at offices inviting gender problems and unsafe returns
to their home at midnights.
19. Further, adequate hardware
and infrastructure should be given immediately to the CBS migrated offices with
sufficient man power and proper remuneration for the extended hours, the staffs
re serving.
20. In spite of all above cited
problems the Postal staff is being worked on finacle software as matter of
challenge and trying to give best services to the customers. In spite of all
efforts the customers are not satisfying/delighting which hampers the
reputation of the department. No PO which is upgraded with finacle are being
closed before 8 PM every day. We are ready to work hard provided, solution for
above problems are to be solved.
It is requested to sort out all
the issues arising out of the CBS Migration and all the vendors need to be
instructed to provide all the technological support as required by the field
staff. As this is the pilot and sorting stage, if we failed to pull up the
vendors to the level of expectation and necessity, later full implementation,
restoration may be difficult with this vendor support.
It is further requested to spare
some time and provide opportunity to present and brief our case in person for
the welfare of our department staff and the clientle. Your immediate
intervention as if house on fire is requested.
A line in reply is highly
appreciated.
With profound regards,
Yours faithfully,
(M. Krishnan)
Secretary General
