The Ministry of Finance is believed to have short-listed Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and Tech Mahindra-Mahindra Satyam for a Rs 200-crore project to automate and electronically link up all debt recovery tribunals in the country.
The Department of Financial Services will select one of these firms as the ‘Implementation Agency’ with overall responsibility for providing applications, hardware and data services to 33 Debts Recovery Tribunals (DRTs) and five Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunals (DRATs), two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, said.
computerisation
DRT’s have been established by the Government for expeditious adjudication and recovery of debts due to banks and financial institutions. On the other hand, DRATs were formed to hear the appeals made against the orders of the tribunals.
Computerisation of the tribunals, as envisaged by the Ministry, will enable online registration of applications, online submission of applications and documents, online issue of notices, orders and e-auctions. The system would also provide for hearing of cases through videoconferencing, wherever required.
Recovery officers will be able to speedily enforce orders of the tribunals through use of technology.
The implementation of e-governance initiatives will help in increasing efficiency of the loan recovery process and provide ‘a platform for seamless operations to banks, financial institutions and general public to expedite recovery of public money’, according to a statement dated March 8 from the Ministry of Finance.
The quantum of bad loans in the banking system jumped 45 per cent to Rs 1,42,300 crore in fiscal 2012 from Rs 97,900 crore the year before.
Ten technology companies had evinced interest when the Department floated a request for proposal for the e-governance initiative in 2012. TCS, Wipro and the Mahindra group company “made the cut” on the technical and pricing fronts, one of the sources told Business Line .
Decision soon
The Department then called for a series of presentations from the three technology companies and forwarded their proposals to the Cabinet Committee on non-plan expenditure, an official with one of the bidding companies said. A decision is expected to be taken in the next four weeks, he added.