IT cos line up for $6 bn govt mission mode projects

While there is a slump in demand from cash-strapped global customers for new technology services, the home market is increasingly looking good for these IT players, with contract sizes matching the ones available overseas. And there seem to be quite a few big deals up for grabs, many of them from the government departments taking their baby-steps in embracing any form of technology. The government departments have plans to spend $6 billion in 30 so-called “mission mode projects”, and there’s promise of more to come, as the federal and state governments embrace e-governance and look to digitise everything from land records to tax filing. There are scores of the government projects that relate to the filing of income-tax, central excise, transport services, computerising municipalities and the police force and developing e-district and e-courts. Companies such as TCS, HCL and Wipro have won significant government business in recent months, and industry officials speak of the government contracts on offer ranging from as small as Rs 100 crore to multiples of Rs 1,000 crore. Infosys has recently bid for a railway project related to creating a Locomotive Management System and ERP implementation, a project to create a billing system for BSNL and another contract from the defence forces.