MADURAI: Perhaps from now on, computer breakdowns may be rare in government offices. That is, if the rules are followed. A Government Order issued by the Information Technology Department recently laid down strict guidelines for annual maintenance contract (AMC) for computers in use at government departments, public sector undertakings and boards functioning under the State Government, including penalty for slackness in maintenance.

The GO has been issued following numerous requests from government departments on fault clearance and maintenance support for personal computers. The order stipulates that the original equipment manufacturer/vendor, who supplied the systems, must be the annual maintenance contractor. In case another agency is engaged in maintaining the systems after warranty period, it must have qualified service engineers within five km from the location of the government office.

The agency should issue a customer service slip after every service visit, indicating the time of call by the user, time of attendance of the fault, nature of fault and whether it was rectified or not. The contractor should provide equivalent standby units where clearance of a fault is likely to take beyond two days, affecting the business process.

The AMC payment, which would not exceed 10 per cent of the total hardware and software procurement costs, would be made in two instalments in a year. At the end of the half-yearly period, the user department would issue a down time certificate, whereby pro-rata deduction of penalty amount would be effected on payments due to the contractor if complaints were unattended to beyond two working days.

The down time penalty after two days of placing the complaint would be Rs. 1,000 per day for server computers, Rs. 100 per day for client computers (general use) and Rs. 300 per day for client computers (used in public counters). While Rs. 500 per day would be charged for high-speed line matrix printer and Rs. 300 per day for heavy-duty laser printer, all other printers would attract a penalty of Rs. 100 per day. Down time would not be calculated if equivalent standby is provided within two days.

If the AMC holders are not able to provide fault clearance in time or if overall down time of the computer systems exceed 30 days in an annual contract, the contractor will have to forfeit a bank guarantee to the value of 40 per cent of the total annual contract value submitted while entering into the agreement.

Fifty per cent of the bank guarantee amount would be forfeited if the downtime of a computer peripheral like printer or scanner exceeds 30 days.

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