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
