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| CM's e-Governance dream unfulfilled | | Dubious Distinction: JK only state in India without SWAN | | early times report
Srinagar/Jammu, Jan 27: The state's 'tech-savvy' Chief Minister's pledge to bring the state on the e-governance map of the country notwithstanding, the state government has failed to establish the State Wide Area Network (SWAN), the main requirement for e-governance, with all the other state's in India having already commissioned the network.
This major centrally sponsored e-governance project worth Rs 58 crore is yet to take off in Jammu and Kashmir, owing to the inordinate delay by the officials of the state's Information Technology Department and J&K e-Governance Agency (JKeGA). According to sources, bureaucratic hassles, lack of subject expertise and lost government focus has resulted in the project not even coming out of the extended and dallying bidding process.
Government of India (GoI) had approved the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) project in March 2005, with financial outlay of Rs 3334 crore for all the states and Union territories of the country. The project was to act as the vehicle for effective implementation of e-Governance in the states and would follow a three-tier structure - State Headquarter (SHQ), District Headquarter (DHQ) and Block headquarters (BHQ).
Surprisingly, as per National e-Governance Programme (NeGP) data, all the states of the country except Jammu and Kashmir have already commissioned the network connecting different levels of government offices and Common Service Centers, thus reaping the benefits of the project. Union territories of Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu and Andaman and Nicobar are the only entities that provide company to J&K state in the list of states and union territories yet to implement the project.
Officials told Early Times that Centre had approved Rs 58 crore for establishment of SWAN in JK at least 5 years back, but the state's performance vis-à-vis e-Governance project implementation is dismal.
" In Jammu and Kashmir, the SWAN will consist of 174 Points of Presence (PoPs) with one at SHQ, 21 at DHQ and 152 at Block/Tehsil level", they added. They said the state had already identified the Community Information Centres to be used as the PoPs.
According to sources, initially the National Informatics Centre (NIC) was chosen as agency for implementing the SWAN project in the state but due to reasons best known to the IT department project was withdrawn from them in 2009.
"The state government then decided to go for Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode for implementing the project. But till date they are yet to complete the bidding process," they added.
Pertinent to mention the state had two options available for implementation of the project and it could have either gone for the NIC model (already done away with) or the PPP model under Build-Operate-Own-Transfer (BOOT) strategy through some private agency.
Official documents reveal that earlier Request for Proposal (RFP) for the said Project had been issued on 24th Oct 2011 by the (JaKeGA) and the last date for receiving the bids had been kept on 30 Nov 2011 which was later extended till April 16, 2012 through three extensions.
However, for reasons best known to authorities the process was later stalled and the RFP withdrawn on April 4, 2012.
According to a senior official of the IT department, a fresh RFP notice for the project had been issued vide notification No 10 of EGA dated 30.08.2012. He said the department was addressing various concerns and queries of the bidding agencies before finalization of the project allocation and implementation. Ironically, despite passage of nearly 5 months, the state has not been able to complete the process for allocation to an agency that would have come out successful through the process.
Pertinently, the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) Project is a major Core infrastructure project under the National e-Governance Plan. The Project aims to provide a dedicated connectivity to all Government Offices in the State and to create high speed intranet for the roll of e-services enabling fast delivery of Government services to the common man.
The central government had approved the Scheme for establishing State Wide Area Networks (SWANs) across the country, in March, 2005 at a total outlay of Rs.3,334 crore to be expended by the Department under Grant-in-Aid of Rs. 2,005 crore, over a period of five years.
Under this Scheme, technical and financial assistance are being provided to the States/UTs by the centre for establishing SWANs to connect all State/UT Headquarters up to the Block level via District/ sub-Divisional Headquarters, in a vertical hierarchical structure with a minimum bandwidth capacity of 2 Mbps per link.
Each of the State / UT can enhance the bandwidth up to 34 Mbps between SHQ and DHQ and upto 8 Mbps between DHQ and BHQ depending upon the utilization. At GoI level, according to sources, steps have been initiated to integrate all SWANs using the National Knowledge Network (NKN). SWAN is envisaged as the converged backbone network for data, voice and video communications throughout a State/UT, they added.
The state government had claimed to have devised a plan to connect 1104 proposed CSCs through the SWAN for providing services to the people in every nook and corner of the State. While speaking during the ICT expo held in 2009 at Srinagar, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had said the project was being implemented to give a major boost to all the IT activities. However, in spite of passage of 4 years, the dream is yet to be realized.
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