The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is planning to go wireless, after reaping the benefits of e-governance with online payments of bills and death and birth registration.
In the first phase, BMC will connect its headquarter, 24 ward offices, four zonal offices and four civic hospitals with Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi project has been pipeline for the last two year but it was declared officially by the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which is also the official consultant for the BMC's e-governance initiative. The civic administrators will float bids for the INR 10 lakh project of INR 1,500 per computer. Unlike the Pune Municipal Corporation, the BMC will bear the entire cost of the Wi-Fi project. While private players will only provide services and modems. BMC has partnered with Intel for Unwiring Pune project The project will cover 280 sq km and enable people to access Internet through their laptops or personal digital assistants from anywhere without a cable. With the Wi-Fi connectivity, all civic officers would be able to use their laptops and access Internet even while visiting ward offices or civic headquarters. Currently, TCS is providing 54 Kbps Wi-Fi connectivity through the LAN server but it will go up to 108kbps with the Wi-Fi. The BMC is also developing its disaster management telecommunication through radio-trunking, a system used to maximise capacity of two-way communication, especially during emergencies.
