29.01.2016
Dear friends,
Vanakkam. As all of you know, Finacle software is not meeting our day to day work requirements and we are facing lot of problems. Though our Department has been intimated on these problems, it goes on migrating offices to CBS without resolving the existing problems.
Our NFPE Secretary General shri R N Parashar has written a detailed letter to Hon'ble minister for Communications and IT Shri Ravi shankar prasad on these issues on 20th Jan 2016.
Though the letter is some what lengthy, we, every body should go through it to know the actual facts The copy of the letter is re-produced here under.
Dear friends,
Vanakkam. As all of you know, Finacle software is not meeting our day to day work requirements and we are facing lot of problems. Though our Department has been intimated on these problems, it goes on migrating offices to CBS without resolving the existing problems.
Our NFPE Secretary General shri R N Parashar has written a detailed letter to Hon'ble minister for Communications and IT Shri Ravi shankar prasad on these issues on 20th Jan 2016.
Though the letter is some what lengthy, we, every body should go through it to know the actual facts The copy of the letter is re-produced here under.
LETTER
ADDRESSED TO THE HON`BLE MINISTER,
COMMUNICATIONS & IT ON 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.
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 modernize 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, ahasty 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 by 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 SPO 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.
20. 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 either 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 at least 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)
Secretary General (NFPE) &
General Secretary (AIPEU Gr.-C)
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