SDC Facilitating Smart Governance: Pawan Garg

Pawan Garg, Senior System Manager – Department of Governance Reforms, Government of Punjab

Punjab’s State Data Centre (SDC) enables aggregation of IT infrastructure, consolidates citizen services and eGovernance applications, and supports infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of government-to-government (G2G), government-to-citizens (G2C) and government-to-business (G2B) services, says Pawan Garg, Senior System Manager – Department of Governance Reforms, Government of Punjab in a conversation with Priya Yadav of Elets News Network (ENN)

Punjab has been working on setting up state data centre. What does the project envisage?

State Data Centre is one of the core infrastructure components of National eGovernance Plan and is being set up across the country under the National eGovernance Plan of Department of Information Technology, GOI. The project was approved for Punjab with total outlay of Rs. 5,014 lakh for ve years. State Data Centre has been planned to provide key functionalities like central data repository of the State, secure data storage and online delivery of services, citizen information and services portal, state intranet portal, disaster recovery, remote management and service integration. SDC also provides better operation and management control and minimise overall cost of data management, IT resource management, deployment and other costs.

What are the benefits if Punjab gets via SDC?

It has led to reduced processing time and waiting time, besides bringing transparency and speed to governance by automating the application process. It also enables cost reduction due to common utilisation of entire IT and non IT infrastructure. It also enables reduced cost of infrastructure creation, monitoring, management for Punjab and its constituent departments, leading to better management of security and access control, besides easy dissemination of information to people on government policies and programmes.

The project was approved for Punjab with total outlay of Rs. 5,014 lakh for five years. State Data Centre will provide key functionalities like central data repository of the State, secure data storage and online delivery of services, citizen information and services portal, among others

What are the plans for Punjab Wide Area Network in the State?

It is proposed to provide horizontal connectivity across the State to various departments for implementation of eGovernance projects. Average cost of horizontal connectivity of one department is around Rs. 4.5 lakh per o“ce. More than 2000 horizontal o“ces are being connected with Punjab Wide Area Network under various projects like state-wide roll out of eDistrict, State Service Delivery Gateway and CCTNS project, etc.

What has been Punjab’s progress in the field of BharatNet?

This project is one of the most visionary and ambitious projects of the Government. With a determined approach to drive Digital India programme, the Indian Government is planning to discuss the National Optical Fibre Network project with states as it is seeking their participation in this ambitious initiative that aims to oer broadband connectivity across all panchayats in the country. The Bharat Net project proposes broadband connectivity to households under village panchayats and even to government institutions at district level. Punjab is among the few states in the country which has worked aggressively to implement this project in the State.

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