NATIONAL FEDERATION OF
POSTAL EMPLOYEES
1st Floor,
North Avenue Post office Building, New Delhi - 110001
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
