TN govt allocates Rs 100 crore for Elcot

The Tamil Nadu government today announced allocation of around Rs 100 crore to Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot) to strengthen IT infrastructure across government departments.

The government also announced setting up of an e-governance fund.

Making a suo motu statement in the State Assembly today Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa announced extension of Tamil Nadu State Wide Area Network a dedicated facility for linking government departments to provide voice, data, Internet and audio-visual link.

Elcot has provided over 708 points-of-presence linking a range of government offices, including district headquarters and 1,853 government offices. A number of these offices, including commercial taxes, water supply and healthcare, utilise the IT infrastructure for delivering services to the public.

The Chief Minister said more horizontal connectivity is needed to expand e-governance and a redundant connectivity, an alternative facility in the case of breakdown of the existing network, is also needed.

The Rs 100 crore will be used to fund a Rs 50-crore second phase expansion of IT network to more government offices, Rs 10 crore for creating redundant connectivity and Rs 40 crore for horizontal connectivity.

The Chief Minister also announced Rs 10-crore e-governance fund to expedite such online delivery of services.

A cloud computing facility will also be created at the State Data Centre at a cost of Rs 11 crore. Enhancing the computing capacity of various departments will also enable government departments get IT hardware and software capacity and save on costs.

A common geographical database will be created at Rs six crore for the use of various departments that need spatial and non-spatial information, said the Chief Minister.