• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Mamuni Das

Contract to be spread over 10 years

New Delhi , Oct. 29

Instead of spending money to get companies to manage the call centre, the Railways would soon get paid for it.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) had invited bids from the consortia of telecom and IT firms for establishing and operating the Railways call centres.

Each bidder will have to specify the licence fee he would pay to the Railways or the subsidy he would need from the Railways to operate the centres.

The bidder quoting the highest licence fee or minimum viability grant will be awarded the contract.

Three bidders were in the race for the contract and the financial bids were opened on Friday.

The contract is likely to be bagged by the Spanco Telesystems-Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd consortium, according to sources. Spread over a 10-year-period, BSNL-Spanco consortium is offering the highest amount to the Railways for managing its call centre, it is learnt.

IRCTC, the agency managing the tender, is currently examining the bids , and declined to comment.

Officials confirmed that the winner would actually pay to the Railways for managing the "integrated train enquiry system".

The call centres will have to provide basic train enquiry services at the cost of a local call for people calling from anywhere in the country.

But the operator can have premium charges for value-added services such as hotel and taxi-booking services.

IRCTC decided on the technical qualifications on Thursday. "All the three bidders had qualified technically," said IRCTC officials.

One of the consortia was led by Midas Communications, Avaya and IBM.

It included Magus Customer, Lettice Bridge, Railtel and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd as well. The second included Spanco Telesystems and BSNL. Spanco Telesystems manages the domestic call centre of Air India too.

CMC, with Tata Teleservices, Avaya and E2E Serwizsol Solutions Ltd formed the third consortium.

Related Stories:
Race narrows for Rlys' call centres

More Stories on : Railways | Outsourcing | Telecommunications

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Rain belt moves north, may linger

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line