The Hindu : Business : State wide area network policy announced

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 21, 2004

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State wide area network policy announced

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT. 20. In a major initiative towards redeeming the promise of giving the country an effective system of e-governance as spelt out in its National Common Minimum Programme, the UPA Government today rolled out the State Wide Area Network Policy to facilitate creation of necessary infrastructure by the State governments to reach the fruits up to the block level and gradually beyond to the remotest part of rural India.

Announcing the policy, the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Dayanidhi Maran, said the Government would spend Rs. 1,000 crores in the next five years to facilitate development of the network by the State government.

The Centre, he said, would make available technical and financial support establishment of the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) through the Department of Information Technology (DIT) and the National Information Centre.

e-Governance plan

In fact, the Government is evolving National e-Governance Action Plan (NEGAP) focused on delivery of services to citizens. Broadly, this plan would have two dimensions.

Spelling out these dimensions and how they would benefit the country, Mr. Maran said "the first is a set of mission mode projects (MMPs) that aim at improving delivery of specific services to citizens and businesses". The second dimension comprises certain supporting components that are necessary to enable and facilitate these projects.

Seamless connectivity

Since network connectivity is an enabler of any modern and efficient administration, the connectivity ought to be seamless.

As such, it has been decided that high speed, high capacity reliable network connectivity with a minimum bandwidth of 2Mbps should be provided for Government-to-Government communication to the block level through Statewide Area Networks and NICNET.

For reaching the last mile wireless and other technologies, he said.

For funding support, a State would need to have undertaken implementation of at least three major statewide e-governance projects that require such connectivity of which at least one should have been completely rolled out over the entire state.

Also, in order to ensure standardisation relation to network infrastructure, the DIT would meet the entire capital and operation costs of network for five years except bandwidth cost, which has to be borne by the State.

Ten States including Tamil Nadu and Andhra have already submitted proposals to the Centre for SWAN. Some more states are expected to approach the Centre with such proposals, Mr. Maran said.

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