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