Lok Sabha Question No. 1751 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2019-02-13
Subject: e-Governance
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: N.K. PREMACHANDRAN

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1751

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 13.02.2019

## E-GOVERNANCE

## 1751.   SHRI N.K.PREMACHANDRAN:

Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state:

- (a). whether the Government has prepared a National e-Governance plan and if so, the details thereof;
- (b). whether the Government has established State Wide Area Networks (SWANs), if so, the details  thereof  along  with  the  issues  faced  by  the  Government  for the establishment and effective functioning of the SWANs;
- (c). the  details  of  the  action  taken  by  the  Government  to  establish  and  monitor  State  Data Centres (SDCs);
- (d). whether  the  SWANs  and  SDCs  in  the  State  of  Kerala  are  functioning  efficiently  and properly, if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor;
- (e). whether the Government plans to extend assistance for establishment and maintenance of Common Service Centres(CSCs), if so, the details thereof and the action taken thereon in Kerala; and
- (f). whether  the  Government  has  formulated  a  nation  wide  scheme  for  establishing  Open Technology Centre (OTC) and if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI S. S. AHLUWALIA)

(a):  Yes, Sir. The Government had approved National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) in 2006 with a  vision  to  make  all  public  services  accessible  to  the  common  man  in  his  locality  through common  services  delivery  outlets  and  ensure  efficiency,  transparency  &  reliability  of  such services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man. Originally 31 Mission Mode  Projects  (MMPs)  were  taken  up  covering  various  sectors  such  as  Income  Tax  (IT), Insurance, MCA21, Passport, Posts, Agriculture, e-District, CSC, PDS, Education, Health,  eBiz, e-Courts, and e-Procurement, etc. To support these services at infrastructure level, core ICT infrastructure  consisting  of  State  Wide  Area  Networks  (SWANs),  State  Data  Centres  (SDCs), Common Services Centres (CSCs) and State Services Delivery Gateway (SSDG) have been set up in various States/UTs.

(b):    The  Government  has  approved  the  scheme  for  establishing  State  Wide  Area  Networks (SWANs) across the country, in March, 2005 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.    Presently,  SWANs  have  been  made operational in   33 States/UTs.

The  States/UTs  are  utilizing  the  core  infrastructure  of  SWAN  for  providing  the  closed  user connectivity  to  various  Government  offices  in  the  States/UTs.  These  offices  access  their applications through SWAN hosted at State Data Centres (SDCs).   SWAN has been integrated with National Knowledge Network (NKN) in 29 States/UTs at SHQ level and 540 at the district level to provide the high bandwidth.

(c):     The Government has established State Data Centre(SDC) in 28 States/UTs out of 33 SDC planned. An Empowered Committee (EC) under the Chairmanship of Secretary(IT) monitors the implementation and progress of SDC.

(d):        SWAN  and  SDC in the state of Kerala have been made operational. The details are as follows:

-  SWAN Kerala: The  Kerala  State  Wide  Area  Network  (SWAN)  Project  has  established intranet connecting one State Head Quarter Point of Presence (PoP) with 16 District PoPs and 152 Block level PoPs. All the State departmental offices at the level of the State Head Quarter(SHQ), District Head Quarter( DHQ) and Block Head Quarter (BHQ)  are connected to  these  PoPs  horizontally  creating  a  State  Wide  Area  Network  interconnecting  all government  entities.  Some  of  the  applications  running  on  Kerala  SWAN  are  from  Police Dept, Transport Department, HMIS, Water Authority, Commercial tax dept.
-  SDC Kerala: The Kerala SDC was made operational in December 2011. The current status of applications hosted on Kerala SDC is as follows:
- o Co- location: 102 Applications
- o Co-Hosted: 468 Applications
- o Cloud: 203 Applications

(e):    Government  has  initiated  a  project  namely  'Common  Services  Centre  (CSC)  2.0'  in August,  2015  under  Digital  India  Programme,  which  aimed  to  set  up  of  at  least  one  CSC (internet enabled kiosk) at Gram Panchayat (GP) level to cover all the 2.5 lakh GPs across the country. The project is  a  self  sustainable  service  delivery  model  with  effort  towards  optimum utilisation  of  ICT  infrastructures  created  by  the  States/UTs.  The  number  of  functional  CSCs (Urban  &  Rural)  across  the  Country  are  3,12,651  CSCs,  out  of  which  2,12,718  CSCs  are functional  at  Gram  Panchayat.  In  the  state  of  Kerala,  total  3,722  CSCs  are  functional,  out  of which 2,081 are at GP level.

(f):   Open Technology Centre(OTC) has been established in March 2007 at Chennai. The overall vision  of  OTC  is  to  facilitate  adoption  of  Open  Technologies  in  e-Governance,  strategic applications  &  services  and  also  to  offer  various  knowledge-based  services  &  products effectively. Open Technology Centre functions as a National Knowledge Facility to provide a

'Synergy'  to  the  overall  components  of  Open  Technology  Initiatives  such  as  Open  Source Software, Open Standards, Open Hardware, Open Course-ware and Open Product Design that are  being  taken  in  various  communities  in  Academics,  Research  &  Development,  Science  & Technology, Industry and other organisations in India.