Uttar Pradesh State Data Centre to start functioning in six months
In a major e-governance initiative, the Uttar Pradesh government today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with India’s largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for setting up of a State Data Centre (SDC) here.
The SDC, which will entail an investment of about Rs 20 crore, is expected to become functional in the next six months. All the data pertaining to the different government departments will be centralised in SDC for delivery of services over web.
Earlier, four companies, including TCS and HCL had bid for the project and TCS’s bid was found to be most economical to the government.
The MoU was signed by TCS Vice-President and Head (government industry solutions unit) Tanmoy Chakrabarty and UP Development Systems Corporation Limited (UPDESCO) Managing Director Narendra Singh Kushwaha.
E-governance has three components — State Wide Area Network (SWAN), Common Service Centres (CSC) and SDC.
While, SWAN refers to online connectivity for e-governance (being provided by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited), CSCs are the outlets to deliver the services (to be set up by private entrepreneurs) and SDC is the central data pool, UP IT and Electronics principal secretary Chandra Prakash told Business Standard.
“TCS would establish and manage the SDC for the next five years and host databases of various government departments,” he said.
The CSCs, which are known as Jan Suvidha Kendra, are being set up all over the state to deliver the services remotely. CSCs would provide online income tax, caste, death, birth and domicile certificates, besides issuance/ renewal of ration card, old-age pension etc. People would also be able to lodge complaints against government officials.
The government will set up a total of 17,900 CSCs in UP, of which 6,200 had already been set up, mostly in rural locations. Till date, 22 services were being offered through CSCs, which will be ramped up to 35.
“From December 30, all the services would be available at CSCs,” Prakash added.
At present, the National Informatics Centre (NIC) was managing a small data centre for e-governance. Chakrabarty said TCS was facilitating e-governance projects in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan. “Besides, we have already set up SDCs in Karnataka and Puducherry.”
