Cradle to Grave SWAN Services in Goa

Cradle to Grave-IT initiative to develop information super-highway  in Goa
BY: Y.Bala Murali Krishna
Panaji, July 23-2k6:  “All Government services from the cradle to the grave.”

This is what the Goa government wants to offer to the citizens hrough its ambitious information technology initiative as part of ts drive to promote e-governance and transparency in dministration, approved by the Centre.

Interestingly, the government does not spend single paise for
investing in the ambitious Rs.70 crore project that aimed at
developing its broadband based information super-highway with connectivity to all its villages by December 2007.

“We facilitate promotion of the unique project through
private-public-participation, first of its kind in the country,”
says the government chief secretary Mr.J.P.Singh.

Be it getting a birth certificate, admission to schools and
colleges, study and caste certificates, examination results,
employment services, vehicle registration and driver’s licenses,
land records, marriage certificate, property registration, payment of taxes, municipal services, old age pensions, health care and death certificates.

The citizens could avail all these and other services through what they called -Mahiti Ghars (kiosks) – that work on the lines of the e-seva or citizens service centers run by private entrepreneurs like in Andhra Pradesh that provide the customers with a cluster of services including purchase of rail and cinema tickets.

At present, there are 30 such Internet service kiosks in the state and the number would reach 240 as the project advances providing the services to all 80,000 villages in the state.

“Goa will be a trail blazer and perhaps the first state in the
country to have the broadband facility reaching every nook and corner of the state using optical fibre cables and hi-fi wireless network by a service provider,” Mr. Singh told UNI.

Another unique feature of the project, he said, was that it provides a host of value added services such as video and movie on demand, and online games, through the Internet, thus avoiding the dish TV and Cable TV connectivity.

Other services included telephony, e learning, distance live
classroom education, preventive health care and telemedicine and diagnosis – that the services available in the most modern states of the developed countries like the US and Europe.

The basic charge to the household is about Rs.400 to Rs.500 per cent month and it could be as low as Rs.250 per month for all the basic services through what he termed as the “State Wide Area Network (SWAN)”

“In fact, we want to go beyond the concept of SWAN now in vogue in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, and Jharkhand while the process is underway in Rajasthan, Karnataka and Kerala to reach the villages.
But we want to reach all the villages in a short time with the
connectivity where the beneficiaries could run even a BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) from his house,” he said.

The network, he said, initially contemplates providing the customers with 60 services, including to the business houses such as hotels, banks for their ATM network and hospitals, leave alone BPO’s and cyber cafés.

Nine of the 11 companies responded to the Expression of Interest for
the prestigious project had been short listed on the basis of the
minimum eligibility criteria. One of these companies would be
finalized for undertaking the task for which the pre-bid meeting is
slated to be held here on July 26.

The government would by September this year would finalise the
financial bids to be submitted by the bidders by August 16. The
short listed companies included  Airtel,Tata Consultancy Services,
Reliance Infocom, Tata Teleservice, Finolex Cables, Global
Teleservices, Aircel(Dishnet),UTL and ITI.

Christened Goa Broadband Project, it aims at building Information
Technology (IT)-enabled, efficient, accountable, transparent and
citizen-friendly government with a global thinking approach, says IT
advisor to the Government Mr.M.N.Rao.

Mr.Rao with rich experience in the IT sector in Andhra Pradesh, told
UNI that the IT initiatives of Goa government would make a
significant impact on the government, its people and the businesses
enterprises.

The short listed ISP would collect revenue from the government for
the services it had utilized for using the bandwidth, besides
business houses and the household.

Initially, the agreement provides for operating and maintaining the
services for 10 years with adequate provisions in the agreement to
check monopoly tendencies and violations of the agreement. The
infrastructure would be transferred to the government after the
10-year period.

The Hyderabad-based National Institute of Smart Governance had been
chosen as consultant for the entire SWAN project that envisages
provision of Data, Voice and video connectivity to government,
semi-government and academic institutions.

It provides 10 GBPS bandwidth for 55 offices at the state level, and
35 offices at the district level, 1GBPS bandwidth at 65 sites at
Taluka and Panchayat level and 240 sites at village level to start
with. The bandwidth ranges from 10 to 100 MBPS for 55,000 urban and
25,000 rural households besides business houses.

The first phase of connectivity from the state to Taluka level would
be completed by this year-end and upto village level by March 31,
next and upto household level by December 2007.

This project may trigger some protests from the local cable TV
operators, who collect huge “non-returnable initial security
deposit” of Rs.1000/- even as they had been charging the customer
with exorbitant monthly rental for minimum services, the officials
admit.

“After all, service to the citizens is our priority and ambition,
not a few cable operators who are known to be fleeing the customers
for a ransom. Thanks to the people-friendly technology,” they
averred. UNI/BM/1300hrs