CONNECTing via SWAN

From computerizing the various government departments in the state, the move
today is to connect all these departments, so that there is more efficient
transfer of data. State Wide Area Network (SWAN) is the next big step that the
individual states in the country are undertaking. This was disclosed by the
dignitaries of various state governments at CONNECT 2004, the Tamil Nadu's
annual ICT show.State minister for law and IT, D Jayakumar in his inaugural
address, announced that the Tamil

Nadu SWAN would be installed throughout the state at a cost of nearly Rs 100
crore.

Similarly, the Karnataka government is also planning a SWAN for the state at
an estimated cost of Rs 170 crore. Additionally, the state is working at
BangaloreOne, a citizen centric portal, where all the public utilities will
function under one roof. The WAN planned for the state would extend up to the
taluk level: there will be WAN control rooms at the state headquarters, all
district headquarters and all taluk headquarters. The network will provide audio
(Internet phone), video and data as well.

West Bengal IT department principal secretary GD Gautama also stressed the
need for integrating all the government services on a common platform to be
accessed by the citizens. He was speaking at the panel discussion on
"e-Governance Opportunities in States". Towards this program, the
government is launching the West Bengal State Wide Area Network (WBSWAN) to
connect the state headquarters with the district headquarters in the first
phase.

"We plan to extend WBSWAN upto the Gram Panchayat level," added
Gautama. Besides the government is also planning for a G2C portal-
www.wbgov.com. Kerala was the first state to set up a Software Park way in 1986.
But somewhere down the line, it lost focus: "being an innovator doesn't
always make you a leader: a good follow-up is equally vital," opined Anand
Singh, IT deputy secretary, Kerala. As far as e-governance is concerned, the
state is moving slow, to learn from others' experience.

"We are setting up network connecting district headquarters to the
blocks in each district, by merging with the Akshaya e-kendrams," Singh
said. Akshaya, is an e-literacy campaign started in Malapurram district of
Kerala, where the government had set nearly 600 e-kendrams (centers) for
promoting e-literacy. Today, nearly 400 Akshaya e-kendrams have transformed into
IT-related enterprises. The government intends to set up nearly 6,000 centers
through out the state at an expense of Rs 180 crore.

Pondicherry IT director V Prithviraj shared the state's plan for setting up
Pondicherry State WAN (PSWAN), where all the applications would be hosted out of
a data center, and accessed through a WAN.

Andhra Pradesh, which already has started working on this initiative, is
looking at providing broadband connectivity to villages, at a total capex of Rs
600 crore, informed Andhra Pradesh Technology Services MD Randeep Sudan.

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