TCS and Wipro are among the three companies vying to bag the prestigious Sri Seva Project by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD), to provide IT solutions and maintenance in offering various facilities to visitors and devotees.

Currently TTD offers four main e-services such as e-seva, e-accommodation, e-sudarshanam and e-hundi to the devotees and the Sri Seva project would help the administration in offering services like providing rooms, laddus as well as in tonsuring, sources said.

There are as many as 48 departments which need to be automated and brought under one platform for better services to pilgrims, TTD had said.  "TCS, Wipro and Infinite Computer Solutions have been shortlisted from the technical bids. Next step will be going for financial bids. By December, we want to implement the project," sources told PTI.

Once the process of technical bids for the Sri Seva project gets over over in a span of ten days, the TTD may go for financial bids, sources said. The project is estimated to cost between Rs 30 crore to Rs 35 crore, with an additional maintenance cost of around Rs 12 crore every year in the first phase, a senior official earlier said.

The phenomenal growth in the number of pilgrims visiting Tirumala has put constant pressure on all the systems, most of which are based on manual operations.

According to TTD, around 50,000 devotees visit Lord Balaji’s main temple in Tirumala every day and on holidays and festivals, the figure crosses one lakh. Vexed by a series of scandals such as black marketing of darshan tickets, accommodation and allied services, the TTD appointed Ernst and Young, an international consultancy firm, to upgrade its IT systems and update its IT eco-system.

The TTD’s Specified Authority (SA) in April approved the design and proposals submitted by the Ernst and Young company for the Sri Seva Project. When contacted, a senior TTD official refused to divulge the financial aspects of the project saying that the project has to go for financial bid and hence they could not reveal the details.

"After a successful implementation of the first phase, TTD will go for the second phase, which will have a complete back-end process and solutions of the Devasthanam," sources added.