Proposals invited to conduct review and audit of “Skill India Digital” Portal

The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship now invites online proposals to provide the following consulting services (hereinafter called “Services”): Hiring of Consultancy services from a Firm/Agency for the Review and Audit of “Skill India Digital” Portal.

A firm will be selected under Quality and Cost Basis Selection (QCBS)procedures and in a Full Technical Proposal (FTP) format as described in this RFP.

Scope of Work:

The services of an expert agency are required to conduct a review and audit of the Skill India Digital (SID) portal (https://www.skillindiadigital.gov.in). The appointed agency will be expected to complete the following tasks:

Document the expected functionality of the Skill India Digital by reviewing successive documents (FRS including NFR, BRD etc.) developed since conceptualization that define its functional specifications.
Conduct a series of key stakeholder interviews to compare the documented functional specifications of the Skill India Digital with the expectations of the key stakeholders.
- Key Stakeholders to be included:
- Other Ministries engaged in Skill development / livelihood enhancement programs, etc. and expected to report data on SID.
- At least two State skill missions engaged in Skill development/ livelihood enhancement programs and expected to report data on SIP/SID
- State and Central Government departments engaged in Skill development / livelihood enhancement programs etc. and expected to report data on SID.
- At least 3 Sector Skill Councils and 5 Training Partners
- MSDE Officials and Consultants
- Other relevant stakeholders
Implement a full technical review and audit of all current functionality of the Skill India Digital and mapping it against expected functionality, identifying both gaps and functionality that extends beyond the functional specifications.
Conduct additional interviews within National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and its service providers to determine the cause of gaps between expected and actual functionality of the Portal, where these exist.
Design and run adequate number of data accuracy tests (to ensure reliability and validity) to assess the robustness of the Skill India Digital. Amongst others, these tests should seek to:
- Verify whether data transformation between the presentation, business logic and data access layers of the Skill India Digital are consistent and reproducible.
- Produce reports to identify potential areas where data transformation between the application architecture layers of the Skill India Digital could lead to inaccuracies or unexpected results.
- Produce and execute tests with reports on data sourced from interconnected systems within the Portal and other Ministries/States Management Information System (MIS) with skilling/livelihood programs, detailing the integrity of the data communicated.
- Conduct additional tests as applicable.
Make recommendations to improve coverage, integrity and accuracy of the Skill India Digital data systems and reports. This will include inter alia:
- Review the migration strategy developed for data migration from different portals like SIP, NAPS, JSS etc. to Skill India Digital and share inputs and recommendations to further streamline the process.
- Data risk if any (Data loss, Data corruption, downtime, technical incompatibilities, etc.)
Development of the Skill India Digital portal
- The technical specs – software used, hosting capabilities, Server used, etc.
- Consultation done to understand the requirement from different stakeholders like other Central Ministries, State Government, Sector Skill Council (SSC), Training Providers (TPs), etc.
Data reporting structure of other Central Ministries and State Governments
- How many schemes are onboarded in Skill India Digital and how many of them have failed to onboard due to certain issues and what was the Turn Around Time (TAT) for onboarding process.
- Application Programming Interface integration process
- Process of Onboarding of any new Scheme of Central/State Government in the Skill India Digital
- Maintenance of audit log, and evidence of corrective action taken (if any)
- Issues faced on reporting the Data
Reports
- Types of reports generated
- Accuracy of the data
- Process of reporting the data through system to different Ministries / State Government
Security and Controls for Data Safeguard and mitigating any risk
- Process of handling issues, various tickets, Turn Around Time (TAT) process, etc.
- Stakeholder consultation to understand the Skill India Digital related issues, feedback, and suggestions.
Continuous review and audit
- Since Skill India Digital is currently in development phase, there is a need to examine the ongoing process and plan for future developments to ensure compliance to the documented specifications, timely error detection and rectification in the project.
- In addition to the scope of work defined above pertaining to a one-time activity for review and audit, as a second work stream, the Consultancy firm/Agency will also conduct a concurrent review and audit.
- As part of concurrent review and audit, Consultancy firm/Agency will conduct the following activities. This is not an exhaustive list and may change based on the requirements and scenarios at different development stages of the modules of Skill India Digital.
  • Functional and technical review and audit of the modules as and when developed and implemented.
  • Defining the check points at different stages of project where the technical and other relevant documents will be shared by MSDE/NSDC for Consultancy firm/Agency to review and map with the portal functionalities.
  • Conducting interactions with key stakeholders to compare the documented functional specifications of the Skill India Digital with the expectations of the key stakeholders.
  • Make recommendations to improve coverage, integrity and accuracy of the modules being developed under Skill India Digital.
- Design and run adequate number of data accuracy tests to ensure reliability and validity.
Data reporting structure including Application Programming Interface integration process, maintenance of audit log, and evidence of corrective action taken.