TCS, Infosys opt out of race for Aadhaar call centre contract
Lack of clarity on the actual number of calls expected likely reason
Jun 07, 2010 (Mint - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
The business process outsourcing (BPO) units of India's top two information technology (IT) firms, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) and Infosys Technologies Ltd, and the country's third largest BPO, IBM Daksh, have decided not to bid for the contract to operate call centres for Aadhaar, the unique identity project.
While around 50 companies attended the pre-bid conference, only 12 of them submitted formal bids, which includes names such as the country's largest BPO, Genpact Ltd, Essar group backed Aegis Ltd, ICICI Bank Ltd-promoted Firstsource Solutions Ltd, Intelenet Global Services Pvt. Ltd, Aditya Birla Minacs and Wipro BPO, according to executives of three BPO firms. A senior official of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) confirmed the names on condition of anonymity.
While TCS and IBM Daksh declined to comment on the matter, an Infosys BPO spokesperson confirmed that the company had not bid for the project but refused to divulge more details. Infosys BPO had bid for the application development services contract jointly with Infosys, which has been awarded to IT firm MindTree Ltd.
According to an analyst with an IT consulting firm, who didn't want to be named, since there is little clarity from the government on the actual number of calls expected, as also profitability, some of the big players may have opted out for these two reasons.
"The opportunity is as big as the country's entire population--1.2 billion people," said an executive of one of the IT firms that has bid for the contract. Though he agreed that there is uncertainty about the actual business and timelines in the beginning, the executive said, "It's a prestigious contract, and we would not like to be seen out of it."
Nandan Nilekani, chairman, UIDAI, had earlier said that 600 million Indians will get their UID numbers by 2014.
Praveen Bhadada, engagement manager, Zinnov Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd, said that while the UIDAI project is an opportunity worth Rs15,000-20,000 crore, the present contract could be in the range of $9-11 million (Rs42-51 crore) for the first year.
While Aegis BPO and Firstsource confirmed putting in bids for the project, Genpact, Intelenet, Aditya Birla Minacs and Wipro BPO declined to comment.