Haryana 1st state to have state-wide area network

Haryana today became the country's first state to implement the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of the Centre's department of information technology.

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda inaugurated the network, called "ADHAAR", at the State Network Management Centre in New Secretariat, Sector 17, here today.

Hooda had a video-conferencing session with the deputy commissioners of Bhiwani, Yamunnagar, Karnal, Ambala, Mewat, Sonepat, Panchkula, Rohtak, Panipat, Jhajjar, Kurukshetra and Sirsa districts.

While speaking to the deputy commissioners, Hooda said, "Our government is committed to deliver quality services to the citizens across the state and provide the benefits of innovative technology and improve efficiency and productivity to the people of Haryana. The government is creating state-of-the-art infrastructure towards this end. Today, the SWAN has been inaugurated. This is one major step towards setting up of core infrastructure for effective and intelligent utilisation of information and communication technology in the service of the people."

Explaining the details, Special Secretary (IT) V S Kundu said this network had been implemented on the build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) model.

The required bandwidth connectivity has been provided by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). Kundu said 280 offices of departments like finance, revenue, transport, local bodies, panchayats and excise and taxation had also been covered under the first phase of the ADHAAR network.

The facilities to be made available under the network included data transfer, on-line applications, voice over IP telephony, video conferencing and e-mail.