New Age Benefits

In the last two budgets, the government had announced passing fertilizer
subsidy to the farmers directly; however, this could not be implemented due to
the lack of proper technology. That translated into additional onus for IFFCO.

Channelizing Distribution

As fertilizer needs to be distributed to the nooks and corners and because
majority of IFFCOs data sources are housed in rural areas, there has been a
considerable slowdown in information dissipation. Creating a database based on
soil sampling and making it available to the farmers has been an excruciating
exercise. In addition, tracking the availability and distribution of fertilizers
has been a major hindrance to an effective decision making. Therefore, it was
essential to have a tracking system that would monitor the demand and supply.
IFFCO has, therefore, adopted virtual private network (VPN) in order to connect
its 800 offices across the country, out of which 110 offices are direct nodes to
VPN while the remaining offices are connected through broadband. An in-house
enterprise application with modules for master data, inventory, sales and
remittances, H&T and storage, port operations, farmer service centers and
promotional activities was developedthis initiative came to be known as e-Vikas.
This has now created a greater visibility and has simplified the complexities of
IFFCOs business processes due to its geographical spread.

Going Green

IFFCO has achieved a record uptime of 99.9% by server consolidation using server
blades and a common IBM SAN storage solution. IP based videoconferencing has
been set up using IFFCO MPLS based WAN links with vendors at both the national
and international levels. In 2009 alone, around 500 officers were interviewed by
the Departmental Promotional Committee in Delhi, using videoconferencing
facility, thereby reducing travel costs and saving on travel time of employees.
This was a major step towards going green and convergence of networks.

"IFFCO is the first Indian company to develop and implement an IT compliant
e-procurement solution to improve speed and efficiency of procurement process,"
says SC Mittal, senior ED, management services and IT, IFFCO. The entire process
encompasses technical and price bid evaluation over a secure network using
public key infrastructure. The empaneled vendors are provided online access to
inquiries and are alerted through email and SMS. The vendors use their digital
signatures to pass through the security controls, and supply all the information
electronically. The e-procurement system has drastically reduced the procurement
lead time, improved efficiency, and reduced transaction costs," says Mittal.

With a view to reduce the energy consumption in five ammonia plants, research
studies were conducted and accordingly energy saving schemes were implemented.
Machines have also been modified to improve efficiencies, resulting in reduction
of 2.95 lakh MT Co2 emissions per annum.

Applications and storage are consolidated at head office for the entire
marketing process. Also, VoIP is used for communications and review meetings.
There has also been an increase in procuring ROHS compliant PCs with energy
efficient SMPs.

The IT infrastructure of IFFCO too has been gradually developed in such a way
that all the financial clearing is done by the end of March 31, 2010.

Atreyee Datta

atreyeed@cybermedia.co.in