www.mausam.com is waste of funds: CAG

Hyderabad: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India, in its latest report tabled in Parliament, has rapped the Hyderabad-based Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, the India Meteorology Department and the Union ministry of earth sciences for spending Rs 2.27 crore on a non-functional website, www.mausam.gov.in.

The website is supposed to deliver real-time weather information but the CAG stated, “it is an unfruitful expenditure. It was noticed that hardware and software procured for the website development were also not maintained by IMD and were lying in disuse”. Subsequent to the re-organisation of the ministry of earth sciences, the ministry had planned to develop a content managed website for itself and IMD with a view to providing real-time data on atmosphere, weather conditions, weather forecast, agromet advisory, astronomical information, climate data, in a user friendly manner.

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Hyderabad, was selected for the project as the firm had developed a similar website for Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, Hyderabad. The government had assigned INCOIS to undertake development of the website and the centre signed an agreement with TCS for design, development, commissioning, hosting and maintenance of content on the website at a cost of Rs 1.10 crore including taxes, to be paid in nine instalments. Hardware and software systems were to be provided by INCOIS. The project was to be completed within 33 weeks from the date of signing of the agreement by 2009.

“Acceptance test of the website, named www.mausam.gov.in, was conducted in 2010 by IMD and declared passed, subject to resolution of nine issues observed with reference to the agreed Systems Requirements Specifications. TCS resolved five of the nine issues and offered to take up the remaining issues as change request at additional cost and the new website would be available till March 2011, but it hasn’t been realised so far,” report said.

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