August 8, 2014
E-Governance boost in Bengal: All Govt departments to be integrated intro web-enabled framework
The West Bengal government is on its way tointegrate its various departments into a web-enabled framework to offer asmooth delivery of services to citizens. A West Bengal State Wide Area Network(WBSWAN), offering a dedicated, secure, closed user group with data encryptioncapabilities, has been created to provide a minimum 2 Mbps bandwidth up to theblock level. With 346 points of presence, the WBSWAN connects more than 500offices of various departments in the state level up to the block level.
“Thisgovernment looks at the grassroots. We should be able to have videoconferencing (VC) from our centres across the state. The VC facility in highdefinition was made available to 14 important state government buildings and 10urban development offices. This involves hardware, software, maintenance andbusiness for some people,” state IT minister Dr Amit Mitra said at ICT East2014 organised by CII.
Besides,a state data centre, serving as a repository of all state government databases,infrastructure, applications and services, has been initiated. An e-Districtpilot project has also been started in Bankura and Jalpaiguri. Sixteen servicesunder six categories such as certificates, pensions, social welfare, grievanceredressal, industrial services and licenses will be made available, with thestate's nodal agency Webel acting as the facilitator. Online tests andinterviews for e-District project managers are already being conducted.
DrMitra said the rollout of this project across 16 districts under five optionaland five mandatory categories will draw a lot of spin-off businesses.
