Wipro (WIPRO.NS : 224.9 +12.85) Infotech, the India and Middle East IT business wing of Wipro Ltd, won an e-governance project, titled Panchdeep Project and worth Rs 1,182 crore, from the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). ESIC is a statutory corporation under the ministry of labour and employment, Government of India.

It is the implementing agency of a pioneering social security scheme in the country. Wipro has been selected to implement the project, which is aimed at improving healthcare services to its beneficiaries by providing online facilities to employers and insuring people for registration, payment of premium and disbursement of cash benefits.

Other modules will provide HR, finance and general administration programmes for increasing the organisational efficiency of the corporation. The project was mandated by ESI Act 1948, focussed on creating a medicare backbone for marginalised sections of the society.

ESIC had invited three bids for Project Panchdeep on build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) model through a global tender published last November. It received bids from the three IT biggies; namely TCS, Infosys (INFOSYS.BO : 1296.35 +69.2) and Wipro. After detailed evaluation, ESIC awarded the six-and-a-half year project to Wipro.

Ranbir Singh, head, government and defence, Wipro Infotech, said, "We, at Wipro, believe that our e-governance expertise coupled with cutting edge technology will help provide better service to ESIC employees as well as citizens." "We are committed to providing a scalable solution for Project Panchdeep by incorporating best practices and selecting an optimal combination of proven technology platform and architecture to meet ESIC's business and functional requirements," he said.

Digitising healthcare

and#149; ESIC is a statutory corporation under the ministry of labour and employment

and#149; It is the implementing agency of a social security scheme in the country

and#149; The project is aimed at improving healthcare services to its beneficiaries

and#149; ESIC had invited three bids for the project through a global tender last November