Events

28th April 2008

Draft talking points for: Thiru R Vijay Kumar Chairman, Gemini Communication Ltd

Commemoration and Handing over of the PROJECT BEST
Monday, the 28th April 08: 4.15 pm: Raghavendra Mandapam, Chennai

• Thiru S Machendranathan, Chairman, TNEB
  
• Thiru S Kathiresan, Member (Accounts) TNEB
  
• Thiru S Gunasekaran, Member(Distribution)TNEB
  
• Thiru K Govindaraju, Member (Generation) TNEB
  
• Thiru V Balachandran, ADGP, TNEB
  
• Distinguished Participants, TNEB officials, our Vendors, members of the Press and Media, our Bankers & my dear Colleagues
  

It gives me great pleasure to welcome all of you to this important session organized by us Gemini Communication Ltd. to commemorate the completion of Project BEST Our special welcome to Thiru S Machendranathan, Chairman, TNEB, & distinguished Members on the dais.

Billing of Energy Services by TNEB (Project BEST ) is a benchmark IT model with the two pronged objective of harnessing e governance for data processing and easing out the hardships of the power consumers in the State, a truly exceptional model serving over 17.5 million LT consumers.

As the proud partners of this prestigious project, I recall with nostalgia, our approach during the Project BEST planning process. Gemini did detailed multi criteria analysis to achieve the long term objective of TNEB to ensure power consumer satisfaction through hassle free payments. I would like to share with this august gathering that one of our strategies for implementation included hand picking our support engineers from the regions where the customization of data processing took place. They had the rare privilege of serving their home towns. It has been a CSR activity for most of them in terms of geographic spread.

Sir, we are indeed honored by our association with this consumer centric project rolled out by the TNEB as part of its IT strategy to improve commercial and operational performance in distribution. While constantly striving to serve the consumers with reliable, affordable and quality power, TNEB has scaled up several notches in harnessing IT as the key enabler for its reform process.

I would like to recall the way TNEB encouraged innovation and wanted cost effective and robust solution to address their need. They allowed bidders in the tender to innovate solutions for connectivity rather than fix a solution and asking people to quote only for the products specified in the tender.

We at Gemini did a mix of both wire line for back haul and wireless for last mile connectivity. As on date with the network that we have created for TNEB, people in a region can pay any where. We do hope that the third and the final phase will come out soon where in people any where in the state can pay there bills any where. We do hope that we will be successful in bidding for the third phase as well, there by getting an opportunity to serve TNEB.

When I was discussing with our Chairman Mr. S Machendranathan I was happy to see his eagerness to help consumers pay with ease. We discussed on how we can make this network internet friendly and allow people to pay from their homes through their credit or debit cards. Sir, I will reconfirm our cooperation to the fullest.

We at Gemini, would strongly urge the TNEB to create a framework for a comprehensive IT blueprint with both a short term and long term implementation roadmap for initiatives. For short-term IT interventions, priority could be given to the use of IT in commercial processes and in improving the quality of supply in selected high revenue areas. The key objective of the IT solution could be to minimize human interface in commercial processes to avoid human errors and chances of intractable mistakes. Having started on the short-term quick win areas, long-term areas could cover business processes.

I am sure that TNEB, is in the process of implementing a structured and comprehensive IT strategy that would result in better reliability and quality of supply, increased productivity, reduced technical and commercial losses, higher customer satisfaction and a fundamental change in the work culture by revolutionizing the way business is conducted. This we can expect after all TNEB is the first and only Electricity Board to have completely computerized all the collection centers.

Gemini would be eager, willing and keen to share its expertise in the IT domain and work as joint partners in the customer oriented endeavors of the Board.

Thank you.