India’s largest IT company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has emerged the lowest bidder for the country’s largest e-governance contract, to computerise Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) and provide smart cards to around 1.5 crore industrial workers across the country.

According to a government official, TCS bid Rs 1,677 crore ($320 million) for the contract, beating its closest IT rivals Infosys and Wipro who bid about Rs 2,100 crore ($420 million) and Rs 1,890 crore ($380 million ), respectively. The financial bids were opened on Tuesday.

While none of the parties were willing to comment, normally tendered contracts are awarded to the L-1 (lowest) bidder. An announcement will be made soon, said the government official who requested anonymity.

ESIC is a statutory corporation under the ministry of labour & employment for implementing social security schemes. The ESIC scheme provides social security protection to over one crore industrial workers and their family members under the ESI Act 1948.

The bids were invited from for implementation of ‘Project Panchdeep’ on build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) basis towards IT-enablement of ESIC from global IT service providers.

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