IT department likely to introduce B-HSWAN

PATNA: Having connected all the 38 district headquarters and 440 block offices through the state wide area network (SWAN), the state's information and technology (IT) department is mulling introducing horizontal SWAN, christened B-HSWAN, which will link all districts offices with the existing SWAN.

SWAN, which is also called the information super highway, allows government to government (G2G) communication in real time and in turn nullifying the distance barrier between field and state headquarters. Apart from using it a communication tool, Bihar has also used the network for running different applications and online treasuries is an example of it.

This Rs 200 crore plan entails connecting about 25 offices in each district on an average and in bigger districts the number of offices to be connected with B-HSWAN would be up to 40. In Patna, the capital city, the B-HSWAN would connect about 200 offices.

"The horizontal SWAN would bring a major change as far as connecting the district offices with that of the district magistrate (DM) concerned and state headquarters (SHQs), as after its introduction all such offices would be connected directly to the DM office and SHQs thus allowing data transfer and video conferencing," IT department principal secretary C K Mishra told TOI.

He said the new system would help SHQs in keeping direct tab on the offices in districts as the officials posted there would have facilities at their disposal to provide information whenever required by the SHQs without any time lag.

Having experienced some problems in the past on the front of connectivity for making the network functional on expected lines during setting up of SWAN, the proposal also entails setting up own transmission towers, if required, to ensure glitch-free communication.

The plan would be implemented using Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model."The agency undertaking this project would have to set up facilities as per our requirement and the department would pay the agency on quarterly basis after assessing the functioning of the system," Mishra said and added the same mechanism of payment had proved to be quite useful in implementing other IT-related projects in Bihar in the past few years.

He said the proposal would soon be put up before the state government for final approval. "The department would take about two years after approval to make the horizontal SWAN functional," he added.

 

Courtsey : The Times of India