Rajasthan for state wide area network

The Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan is turning technology-savvy. It now plans to establish a Rajasthan State Wide Area Network (RajSWAN) at a cost of Rs 125 crore.

The RajSWAN, which is envisaged as the backbone network for data, video and voice communications throughout the state will act as the vehicle for effective implementation of electronic governance (e-governance) across the state.

"The RajSWAN will link government offices at the state secretariat which include the state headquarters (SHQ), zila parishads (DHQ) and all the Panchyat Samiti headquarters (BHQ), the state Data Center/Network Operation Centre (SDC/NOC) and approximately 3,358 horizontal offices located at the DHQ/BHQ," a senior government official said.

RajSWAN will use a suitable topology, state-of-art technologies and flexibility to expand/upgrade to cover all parts of the state.

All e-Governance Applications, Communication and IT infrastructure would be linked/Integrated to RajSWAN.

He said that RajSWAN will be based on open standards, scalable with high capacity network to carry data, video and voice traffic between different offices of GoR at State, District and Block level.

The network will have a single point gateway of adequate capacity to Internet and other existing, upcoming Networks. The state government is looking towards this project as the converged network for data, voice and video as well.

Government of Rajasthan has already started the exercise in this direction and has invited bids from eligible bidders who have the necessary qualifications to carry out the supply, installation, testing, linking, commissioning and thereafter provide Network Operation and Management Services for complete RajSWAN on BOOT basis for a period of fve years.

It may be mentioned here that wth a view to deploy IT for the benefit of citizens of the states, Government of Rajasthan has already in place two citizen friendly projects-LokMitra and JanMitra. While LokMitra is an urban centric e-Governance project, the JanMitra is a rural centric e-enabled service delivery system. It provides a wide range of social services & information on relevant topics to citizens under one roof.