Both the parties agreed on the draft proposal after a day-long discussion between ASE computer committee headed by president Atul C Doshi and TCS vice-president Jagdish R Bhandari here. The LoI is likely to be signed by TCS chief executive officer Ramadurai on Tuesday or Wednesday and the systems to be commissioned by late February or early March. When contacted, ASE executive director Rajiv Desai said the package would be from the stage of installation to commissioning and maintenance for three years from the date system would be put on acceptance testing. The facility included the hardware as well as software and a permanent help desk for constant facility management.

He said that CMCand Wipro Infotech Ltd were also in the race for providing the new systems ever since the ASE had decided to snap ties with Tata-IBM and had started looking out for a new systems integrator. At one stage, the present provider, Tata-IBM, also wanted to renew its contract despite hiccups faced by the ASE members during the last two years.

Desai pointed out that ASE was looking out for a system with higher and more efficient system capable of handling at least 1 lakh trading per day for five-and-half days a week as against Tata-IBM's 50,000 trading per day. He said the ASE board of governors and the computer committee unanimously decided in favour of TCS for the entire package.

He said that CMC and Wipro had also their systems working at Mumbai and Calcutta Stock Exchanges. But, he said, TCS won the race as its system had `empirical evidence' of already working at nearly 70,000 trading per day at the NSE and the DSE, the systems being designed by TCS. The ASE members, too, expressed their familiarity withthe NSE systems, he added.

It is only after the new systems comes into operation that the ASE would snap its ties with Tata-IBM. The ASE had enterred into a contract with Tata-IBM in December 1996 for the existing systems at a cost of about Rs 6 lakh, subject to its working to the satisfaction of members. However, the members had frequent complaints against the systems. The Tata-IBM came out with a revised contract, but that too did not work long. Ultimately, the ASE settled the financial arrangement and claimed the two bank guarantees totalling Rs 2.70 crore in August last year. However, ASE would have to now pay a rental of Rs 15 lakh per quarter till the trading was carried out in the old systems.

Meanwhile, ASE had raised Rs 5 crore as corpus fund and Rs 14 crore as members' fees, as pre-conditions for starting demat trading at ASE. It is likely to start before March-end, he said.