No. PF-35/CBS/2016 Dated: 20th January, 2016
To
Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad,
Hon`ble Minister, Communications & IT,
Government of India,
New Delhi-110 001.
Sub: Miseries
and untold sufferings faced by the staff in CBS &CIS rolled out offices
throughout the nation – Immediate and personal intervention requested to rein
in the situation
.....
With due
respects and profound regards, we are perforced to bring the following to your
kind notice for your immediate intervention and to halt the hasty exercise
without minding the adverse effects in implementing the CBS and CIS by the
administration in the Postal department.
At the outset,
we wish to make it clear that we are not against to the modernisation of the
postal service and we are welcoming the recent changes taken place in the
department in the arena of modernisation. In fact, it is the postal service
that only modernizes without engaging any experts or other agencies with the
fullest cooperation and optimum utilization of the staff particularly the
Postal Assistants called as Systems administrator with their personal knowledge
which they already acquired in the computer oriented operations. Even today the
same officials only attend faults and servicesby releasing so many patches to
the software and maintain properly whenever required and not depending the
agency services and without any extra remunerations.
Now, a hasty
exercise is being carried out by the department and CBS migration is undergoing
in large no. of offices in many Circles without minding the capacity of the
network and the peripherals available in the offices. Till time more than 6000
offices are rolled out to CBS, due to the pressure exercised by the Department
in haste. Because of such anunrealistic fast approach, the end
users at the Counter area are affected very badly, and the public are
also suffering a lot.
Whereas, in
Banking Sector, when such migration is undertaken, it has been carried out in a
phased manner; for example, in SBI, the leader in Banking sector, the migration
was made only in 100 branches at the first year and so on.
It is the known
fact that the staff are suffering and struggling with the outdated computers
and peripherals, which were purchased during the year 2000 to 2005 that is at
the time of introduction of computer in the post offices and no adequate
funding has been made so far to replace or substitute them till date and
as a whole the Department is surviving with very old outdated hardware. Even
proper up gradation of CPU has not been made in many areas and the Software
loaded is upto Windows XP, almost in most of the offices. Finacle can be
loaded only with Windows 7 and hence the officers at ground
level are pressurized to use pirated version of Windows 7, which is
totally illegal and leads to legal litigation from Microsoft.
The staff are compelled to work in the outdated mode with pirated software,
resulting in non-operation.
The MOU made
with M/s Sify, for network integration is limiting to low bandwidth such as 128
Kbps to 256 Kbps in single and double handed offices, and 256 kbps to 512 kbps
in ‘A’ class to LSG offices 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 at least 1 to 4 Mbps and M/s Sify refused to increase the bandwidth
now. Despite these facts were brought to the notice of the Secretary,
Department of Posts several times, still there is no action to upgrade the
bandwidth to the existing needy offices but going on introducing CBS in new
offices and creating the problems further.
End of day
process cannot be made after validation/supervisor verification and the staff
has 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 carry home. They
could not attend even their family, personal and social obligations, resulting
in loss of mental balance, family problems, stress and social problems. There
is no safety and security for the women employees leaving the office by late
nights, especially in rural areas, where there is no transportation available.
It is our responsibility to ensure the safety and security of the women
employees and no untoward incident should be allowed to happen as in case
of Jyoti Singh Pandey of New Delhi.
Even the Help
desk provided is not answering and the end users are taken to task and
receiving brick bats from the irate public. 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 loses large chunk of customers, because
of the miscalculations, wrong estimations and over ambitious stand of
the bureaucrats. If the particulars about the closure of accounts by the
public in the CBS introduced offices is collected, it will establish our
concern about the service.
Consequent to
the increase in large number of Post Offices on CBS, it was observed for the
past four months that the Data Centre Closure process is executed during day
time that too during peak Counter hours. This results in slow accessibility of
Finacle throughout the country. Irrespective of bandwidth, the Finacle
slowness has been experienced in all Post Offices in the recent past. This
affects the public services very badly during the peak hour viz.from 11.00
am to 03.00 pm on daily basis.
Further, due to
Finacle slowness, the most affected operation is the Cheque Clearing
operations. The Clearance House sends the images of the cheques to the
Head Offices at around 08.00 am in the morning. The onus of furnishing the
information pertaining to Bounced Cheques, that too before 11 am to the
clearing house, lies on the respective Head Offices. If the information
pertaining to Bounced Cheques is not received before 11.00 am from the
concerned HOs, the entire amount of Inward Clearance cheques are deemed to be
CLEARED by the clearance house. This leads to encashment of bounced
cheques, the responsibility of which lies on the shoulder of the
poor officials and they have to face contributory negligence recoveries.
Since from the
day of the first migration, the staff unions are complaining about the
deficiency in services provided my M/S Infosys Ltd, especially facing enormous
problems in the Finacle Software, besides bandwidth, network, transmission and
Server problems. On each and every occasion or from the day we are complaining
at all levels, there is one word reply that, everything will be set right and
put into rails one by one as this is only the transition period and everybody
should bear with, in the interest of the Department. This is the saying mooted
out and spread everywhere, from top to bottom. Now the 2 years Contract
period for total the implementation is nearing completion and there is no sign
of improvement and the problems persist and aggravate everywhere. It is most
unfortunate to mention that the postal employees are all bearing with all these
hardships and sufferings, in the interest of M/S Infosys.
Because of all
these deficiencies the Department not only losing the customers, besides
there is huge loss of man days and due to non-operation there
is huge loss of money. This should be compensated with. There is a
penalty clause in the Contract for deficiency in service. Instead of pulling
the poor ground level officials, the application of penalty clause may perhaps
be considered and applied on the service providers’ viz. Ms. Infosys and M/s
Sify. It is reported that India Post has undertaken the project for switching
over to Core Banking Solution platform with a total project outlay of
Rs.800 crores. Hence, in the interest of the Department, we request the
Hon’ble Minister for Communication to pursue with, on the direction, in order
to pull the vendor and to save the customer services, the image of the
Department and the public money.
The following
are the few examples the staff facing
across the counters which have not been attended by the department but
expanding the problems to more offices in the nation.
1.
Connectivity
is the major problem which is damping the image of the Postal Department.
2.
Slowness
& non accessibility of Finacle server affects the day to day work. (Each
and every transaction getting an error message “COULD NOT CONNECT THE SERVER”,
“SERVER IS NOT ACCESSIBLE”, “PLEASE CONTACT YOUR ADMINISTRATOR”, “WEB PAGE
COULD NOT OPEN THIS PAGE” etc.,)
3.
“USER
ALREADY LOGIN” problem is occurring very often. In single handed offices System
Administrator should alone rush and resolve this problem.
4.
Even
in first attempt an error message “USER ID IS LOCKED. PLEASE CONTACT
ADMINISTRATOR” and could not able to access the finacle. “CSAC” menu only
authorized to CPC. SO that they can only reset the user ID. ‘CSAC’ menu option
may kindly be provided to Divisional SPOC or concerned System Administrator.
5.
Report
option not working properly.
i)
E.g,
There is no provision to generate/print SSA LOT
ii)
Certificate
numbers not shown in the KVP/NSC certificates daily issue report
iii) Sometimes
MIS & SCSS account numbers not shown in the LOT of counter transactions
iv)
There
is no provision to print the previous days LOT, Consolidation, KVP/NSC Issue
& Discharge journals, SB automatic credit report etc.,
6.
Total
menus available in the Finacle not educated to all the officials. (Like CMRC,
HABI, HPSP etc.,)
7.
Inadequate
training to the officials. Online training not given to the officials at the
time of the training period. All the training were given to theoretically not
practically (Eg., Agent transaction, Certificate discharge, Inventory movement
etc.,)
8.
SOL/Role
change not effectively used by the administrative level. Whenever PA of the CBS
counter proceeds on leave in his user ID working with other officials.
9.
Some
POSB rules are blindly violated in the CBS Finacle software. Eg., RD account
can close even on the same day of opening, not bothering about the eligible
date of birth for SSA account etc.,
10.
No
clear cut ruling about the other SOL transactions whether we can update the
pass book entry of other office?
11.
Changing
of rules very often. Officials could not able to update the current rulings.
12.
Even
modifying the CIF ID no message received for deposit and withdrawal.
13.
Deposits
and withdrawals allowed to Supervisor option also. This cause to verify the
transactions. Other office supervisor only can verify these transactions.
14.
If
someone office transaction verified at other office that particular transaction
shown in the verified office’s LOT not in the transaction performed office’s
LOT.
15.
Certificate
numbers not shown while issuing KVP/NSC certificates.
16.
There
is no option to reprint the certificate. If one forget to print the
certificates there is no provision to print the same in future.
17.
In the
cheque clearing option facing much difficulty to find out the bank code, branch
code, POSB cheque option not available in the said menu.
18.
“ALREADY
SESSION AVAILABLE” error message shown frequently.
19.
BAT
& DLT not shown in CBS Finacle.
210.
If any
withdrawal done no provision to block such amount till verifying the said
transaction. There may be chance to withdraw the amount by using ATM card. In
banking sector if any amount withdrawn such amount will be blocked and cannot
withdraw by using ATM card.
There is not tangible action
wither by the department or by the vendors so far. Based
on the above, our Union requests the Hon’ble
Minister of Communications that
i) to stop
such unmindful migrations into CBS/CIS immediately till settlement
of the problems reported ;
ii) to provide
adequate infrastructure to the ground level offices, such as
replacement of systems, computer peripherals , UPS, battery, printers
etc. immediately;
iii) to improve
the bandwidth of sify network atleast to the level
of 512 kbps in single handed offices and to the level of 4Mbps in
Head Post offices ;
iv) to
centralize the EOD process at CPC level in all circles and to
relieve the official at ground level
after completion
of validation process , without late night detention ;
v) to centralize
the cheque clearance work at CPC level, since it
is now under CBS ;
vi) to
ensure the operation of CBS without
interruption/slowness during peak hours to cater the
need of the common public .
As we have no
positive response from the department to mitigate the sufferings of the staff
deployed in the CBS introduced offices and as an act of adding fuel to fire,
the department unmindfully is introducing the CBS in the remaining offices and
losing the customers as well as causing mental torture to the officials, we
have no other alternate except to bring these facts before the Hon’ble Minister
and seeking his personal intervention to create a congenial and calm working
atmosphere and ensure a correct and well planned expansion of CBS further in
the Department of Posts.
May we request
your response, Sir,
With Profound
regards,
Yours sincerely,
(R. N. Parashar)
