Vertical Focus

Focus On: SWAN progress in individual states

A lot depends on the state-sponsored SWAN. Or does it? Departments in states that have implemented SWAN are making good use of the network infrastructure, but some others in states without a SWAN are doing well too.

Ujagar Singh, Commissioner of Tamil Nadu,

During the last few years, many state governments have put their computerization drive in top gear. For obtaining the desired benefits from many applications, networking government offices across the breadth of the state has often been a prerequisite. Recognizing the importance of reliable connectivity, the Government of India has encouraged states to set up a state-wide network.

In the October of 2004, the Department of Information Technology (DIT), issued a circular titled Guidelines for Technical and Financial Support for Establishment of State Wide Area Network (SWAN), in which it identified the SWAN as an element of the core infrastructure for supporting e-governance initiatives. The central government also announced that it had earmarked funds for financing the setting up of SWANs.

At that time, wide disparities existed between states when it came to preparedness on the part of the state for setting up the SWAN. The Department of IT observed that some state governments had already established State Wide Area Networks, many of them adopting an outsourcing model for the implementation, operation and maintenance of the SWAN infrastructure. Some states had leveraged the existing NICNET infrastructure for the purpose.

DIT had also noted that establishment of SWAN is an expensive proposition involving high capital cost, recurring bandwidth and operational cost and had urged state governments to look at all the possibilities, including outsourcing options. The guidelines had also pointed out that depending on the types of the services to be made available on the SWAN, certain revenue streams could be created to offset part of the costs.

Now, five years down the line, state governments continue to be at varied stages of SWAN rollout. While the more aggressive ones such as Gujarat are now looking at enhancing their well-established WAN, others such as Maharashtra are still to carry out much of the spadework.

TN grapples with rough terrain

Uday Desai

On its Web site, DIT tracks the progress of SWAN projects in individual states of India, categorizing the states according to the extent of the work carried out (see BOX). Among the states placed in the 'SWAN implemented' category are Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh.

However, a discussion with the state officials of the two states shows that there is a lot of difference in the rollout patterns of the two.

With an area of 130,058 square kilometers area, Tamil Nadu is among the larger states of India (the eleventh largest). The area is of special significance when one considers the extent of SWAN progress, as a larger geographical area places a greater burden upon the state administration as far as providing extensive connectivity is concerned. In fact, Tamil Nadu is the largest state in the 'SWAN implemented' bracket.

In the first phase of implementation, the Tamil Nadu government is aiming to connect all district headquarters with the state capital, Chennai, with 2 Mbps leased lines. Most of the work in this category is complete. Ujagar Singh, Commissioner of Tamil Nadu, who is in charge of the government data center, noted that Rs 181.69 crore had already been sanctioned for the first phase; out of which Rs 97.17 crore had been the state government's contribution, the rest coming from the center. HCL was the technical consultant for the project, while TCS had been awarded the contract for maintenance of the project on a Build-Own-Operate basis. Leased line connectivity had been bought from BSNL.

In the second phase, the work for which is yet to start, the plan is to extend connectivity to the zilla headquarters. Singh feels that some difficulties are likely to crop up. In most cases, new cables will have to be laid. "If cables have already been laid down by other private carriers, it will have to be seen that they are not disrupted," said Singh.

Some places in the state are too remote to be connected by cables. Such places are to found in the areas surrounding Tuticorin and Kanyakumari. Wireless will be the preferred mode to provide connectivity in such places, said Singh. Difficult terrain, such as areas with shifting sands, also precludes the laying of cables, and so, the wireless mode will have to be employed in such cases too.

Once the network was in place, transaction time and cost of delivery of services to the citizens as well as within the government would be slashed, greatly improving efficiencies, felt Singh.

HP's priority-nailing down SLAs with the ISP

A mountainous terrain has traditionally impeded the flow of communication in Himachal Pradesh. Perhaps that is the reason why the state government ministry and officials have been keenly pursuing the project of linking far-flung areas by means of the SWAN.

The state has fared pretty well. One among half a dozen of the 'SWAN implemented' states in India, the network coverage, however, is not one hundred percent. Rajiv Sharma, Deputy Director (IT) department of Himachal Pradesh, shares that out of a total of 132 points of presence at the district and tehsil level, 124 are functioning. Most of the applications are hosted at the state's mini data center in Shimla.

The project was budgeted at Rs 95.66 crore, of which Rs 50.21crore was to be the contribution of the central government. HP was awarded the contract of supplying equipment, operating and managing the SWAN in Feb 2007; the same has been operational since Feb 2008. The contract was awarded for a period of five years for Rs 45 crore, of which Rs 22 crore was the capital expenditure, the rest being operational expenses. Though the initial outlay was around Rs 50 crore, the actual cost came to be around Rs 46 crore, including the costs for third party auditing.

The problem of connectivity manifests itself in areas such as Dodra Kwar (tehsil level) in Shimla district, where even today there is no motorable road. "BSNL is trying a VSAT link, but the same has not been successful so far," said Sharma. In remote areas such as Kinnaur, ensuring maintenance of the networking infrastructure poses challenges. Landslides are a common occurrence in places such as the Rohtang pass, so the service provider has to frequently contend with broken cables.

The administration has pushed for 99% uptime on those parts of the network where dedicated leased lines are provided and 98% uptime for all other points. BSNL was selected as the service provider because private telecom operators were reluctant to provide data connectivity beyond the urban localities. However, BSNL has declined from signing SLAs that bind it to providing such connectivity. "They try to give good service, but currently there is no obligation on them to ensure high uptime figures," Sharma said. However, this situation is set to change. A recent circular by the Government of India states that it will soon be mandatory for BSNL to sign SLAs.

Overall, 611 offices have been connected to the SWAN with important projects such as revenue and land records now online. The state has also attempted to tap into the benefits of real-time analysis that Web applications lend themselves to. A case in point is the digitization of reports of ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) Scheme. ICDS is an inter-sectoral program which seeks to directly reach out to children, below six years, and their caretakers, generally their mothers, especially from vulnerable and remote areas and provide them with early childhood education, as well as essential nutrition and medicines. Until recently, the half-yearly survey that the department conducted would be compiled at the district headquarters level. This often took months, so that when the results were available, in many instances it would be too late for any meaningful intervention. "Now, data is directly fed at the source, so that the time for data collection and preparation of reports is greatly reduced," said Sharma.

Aggressive Gujarat raises WAN bar

The government of Gujarat has been among the first states to rollout a state-wide WAN. As is the case, many of the state government's offices were connected over a WAN way back in 2000, long before the term SWAN was coined. As such, the current WAN has been set up without any central government funding. DIT has put Gujarat into the bracket of 'states in the advanced stage of WAN implementation', but this belies the state's true status. What DIT is probably referring to when it so tags the state is the project to upgrade parts of the WAN, which is the current focus of the state administration.

Currently, more than 3,500 offices have been connected with GSWAN, informed Uday Desai, who, until recently worked with TPA, a third party auditor for Gujarat state's IT infrastructure, and was the COO of GSWAN. Desai now works as a consultant for E-infochips, a citizen-centric service provider.

A total of 19,000 employees use the SWAN. All district headquarters and hospital are connected. A health information management system links all government hospitals. Connectivity of 4 Mbps is provided up to the district level, while at the taluka (tehsil) level it is 2 Mbps.

The current exercise of upgrading the SWAN, which is partly funded by the central government, the state is looking at replacing older generation components and replacing them with routers with advanced functionalities and layer 3 switches. "With important systems such as the revenue system going online, there is a lot of emphasis on information security, hence the need for upgrading the hardware" Desai said.

Part of the network enhancement project will focus on providing a redundant path to critical links on the network. Wired connectivity is available at every district headquarters, but to connect other offices within the city the administration has had to deploy broadband wireless sets. A total of 17,000 such sets have so far been deployed.

The administration is taking steps to reuse the routers that have been replaced. For example, the administration has recently connected police outposts in small towns using used routers that have limited ports since the requirements in such outposts are modest.

Uttarakhand keen to flag off WAN

Jayant Sinha, DGM & Head (IT), UPCL

Uttarakhand is among the states that are labeled as an 'Implementation in Progress' state by DIT. Since August 2008, NIC (National Informatics Council) has been given the work of setting up the WAN. Dr D R Shukla, Director, NIC (Uttarakhand Project) said that 135 points of presence (POP) have been identified for providing connectivity. The state is made of seven districts in the Garhwal region in the west and six in the Kumaon district in the east.

As is the procedure, the state administration is supposed to provide NIC with the physical site for housing the networking equipment at each POP. Shukla said that around two-thirds of the work related to the civil construction of the sites is over: in the Kumaon district, around 90% of the work is completed, while in the districts of Garhwal, the figure is around 50%. Rural Engineering Services, an agency of the stage government, is awarded the work of construction of the POP. "It seems likely that most of the work with regard to construction of the POP will be completed by August," said Shukla.

The stage government has chosen BSNL as the service provider, which is going to lay optical fiber with speeds of 2-4 Mbps at the district level, and 2 Mbps at the tehsil level. NIC would be responsible for maintaining the SWAN for a period of five years.

Many rural development monitoring and welfare projects, such as the Vahan and Sarthi project of the RTO, have been computerized, but currently most branches of the department are not connected, Shukla informed. However, with the rollout of the SWAN, officials in different departments of the government would have access to applications even at the tehsil level.

Interestingly, despite the fact that the government-funded SWAN is not yet complete, Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL), a state-run utility, has gone ahead and connected most of its branches on a WAN that it has rolled out. Jayant Sinha, DGM & Head (IT), UPCL, however, is eagerly awaiting the rollout of the government-backed SWAN. "We would be able to use the SWAN as a backup link, with that our uptime levels should go up considerably," Sinha said.

aditya.kelekar@expressindia.com