Director (T&FS) Mr. Shashi Shanker, Director (HR) Mr. D D Misra and Director (Finance) Mr. A K Srinivasan jointly launched “Live Terminal Bidding” process (Phase-II of e-tendering process) on 24 May 2016, for the investments of ONGC ECPF Trust. With this, ONGC ECPF Trust has become the first Provident Fund Trust in India to implement this functionality in its entirety and that too with only in-house support. This functionality will result in significant improvement in earnings for ONGC ECPF Trust as well as bring more transparency, accountability and better record-keeping.
The Directors took time out from their busy schedules and witnessed the live bidding for investment. After the process was over, the Directors appreciated the ECPF Trust team and ICE-MM team for their efforts. They remarked that it was these types of initiatives which enhance the goodwill of ONGC and firmly put it as a pioneering organization. Also present on the occasion were ED-Chief ER Mr. Pradeep Sahariya, GM- Head ICE – Mr. Dharam Raj, GM-HR- Head Trusts Mr. K. Ambedkar. From ICE-MM team In-charge MM SRM Mr. Shishir Agarwal and Mr. Amit Agarwal, Chief Manager (MM). The ECPF Trust team was represented by Mr. S.K. Sutaria DGM (F&A) and Mr. Hemant Kundra, Manager (F&A).
When Phase-I of e-tendering process was implemented last year, ECPF Trust had made the interface with outside entities for investments totally system-based with each entity getting a login from which they could submit their quotes within the cut-off time and could avail many other facilities. This had led to transparency and high level security as the bids were now being submitted through e-tender website of ONGC and information was being stored on ONGC servers with time stamp and was available for review as and when required.
Now with the launch of “Live Terminal Bidding” process (Phase-II of e-tendering process) this has been taken a step further. The empanelled entities can actually improve their offers through the secure “Live Terminal Bidding” functionality provided to them in the e-tendering website. This will ensure increased competition and will lead to considerable improvement in earnings of ECPF Trust. This will also ensure complete transparency in the process as all related entities will be able to see in a live environment what are the best offers and where they stand. All this will happen in a secured and confidential space as other information like names of entities will not be visible on the Live Terminal. This is a complex yet extremely effective and beneficial functionality for all concerned.
With its implementation, ONGC ECPF Trust has entered uncharted territory as none of the Provident Fund Trusts in India has implemented this functionality in its entirety at present. One or two Trusts have tried to implement it but have succeeded in only partial implementation and that too after outsourcing the process. This is where this achievement becomes so special. Not only has this been implemented in its entirety (it will be actual bidding in real-time and will continue till every entity has exhausted their means) but it has been developed with totally in-house expertise.
This is a joint effort of ECPF Trust team and ICE-MM team across several months. In fact, the ideation process for this had started with the implementation of Phase-I itself. That’s why it was named as “Phase-I” despite it being an independent and extremely important functionality; to remind that something better (Phase-II) was still to come. Several technical and functional challenges were faced during the development of the process but with sustained and sincere efforts of both the teams slowly but surely all challenges were overcome. Thereafter, thorough testing of the system was conducted internally and then the outside entities were trained in the usage of the system. Final live testing was conducted with actual data which was also successful paving the way for the implementation of this path-breaking functionality for investments of ONGC ECPF Trust. It is planned to implement this functionality in other welfare Trusts of ONGC soon.
Throughout this process, there was unwavering support of Trustees of ECPF Trust in general and Director (Finance), Director (HR) and ED-Chief ER in particular who encouraged and motivated the teams for early implementation of this process. During development of the process, Head-ICE was personally involved and monitored the status of development. ICE-MM team including Mr. Shishir Agarwal (In charge), Mr. Keshava Kumar, Mr. Amit Agarwal and others gave full support to ECPF Team to make this development a success.
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