mumbai over 25 lakh lic policy holders and their agents are unable to carry out transactions for the past couple of weeks because of a new software installed in the firms branches in the western suburbs lic tied up with software giant wipro to introduce efeap a new software to improve efficiency of the organization it was installed in midmarch in mumbai division office mdo iii that includes all the 19 branches between bandra and dahisar on an experimental basis branch officials said customers and agents are furious we have to face the flak they said a maladbased lic agent said officials at many of these branches are unable to process claims or receive premium towards the renewal of policy most of the branches are not able to approve the loans against the policy because of fault related to software many are livid that the lic management decided to choose the month of march to introduce a new concept another official said this is the month when most people rush to buy policies to save taxes they could have introduced this software in april or may when the pressure is less on staff during the initial four days work came to a complete standstill in the western suburbs an agent said even now branches are not able to settle claims or pay commission to agents in some cases it takes almost 15 minutes for the software to generate a receipt because of glitches in the software another agent said my client has given a cheque of rs 1 lakh to avail tax benefit on march 15 however his papers for issuance of policy remain unprocessed due to software complications some agents have been advised by officials to pay premium online or by visiting branches of other divisions this is impractical many do not have the time to travel and not all policy holders are computer literate said a agent from andheri lalit todi an lic customer who had applied for loan said i have been told that the cheque is ready but is not being issued as validation of the voucher cannot processed due to software problems in fact the cheque that is issued in my name bears the date march 19 however the covering letter for the loan was generated on march 25 the lic officials now say that they will charge me interest from march 19 onwards even maturity claims are not being processed nitin shah name changed said my policy is maturing on march 28 and the relevant papers were submitted on january 11 branch officials told me to come in april as they were unable to give me specific date because of glitches in the software an official said employee unions had made representation to the lic management about the problems being faced at the branches where this software was introduced as pilot project they ignored their pleas and went ahead with their decision to introduce efeap in mdo iii and jaipur vipin anand chief corporate