Burdwan is India’s first e-governed ‘panchayat’ district

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Express news service

Posted online: Friday , February 08, 2008 at 02:42:33
Updated: Friday , February 08, 2008 at 03:00:21

Kolkata, February 7 Burdwan has become the country’s first district where all the panchayats have been offered a broadband connectivity for communicating with its district and state headquarters.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee inaugurated the multi-crore-project on Thursday. State Minister for Information Technology Debes Das said the new set-up has connected all the 277 gram panchayats, 31 blocks, six sub-divisions of the district with its headquarters.

Through this network, it will be possible for the panchayats to send and receive data, voice and video. The network is expected to help daily administrative work, locally and at the state-level, he said.

As per the official information, the said project is an expansion of the existing State Wide Area Network (SWAN), a Union government initiative under National e-governance plan (NeGP). The project has incurred a cost of Rs 6.2 crore, which includes Rs 4.96 crore from the NeGP.

The multi-point connectivity between the panchayats and the respective block-offices has been achieved using wireless data transfer technology that facilitated the completion of the project, Das said.

While the Webel ISP— a project of the West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limite— has installed this infrastructure for the wireless transmission, a Kolkata-based company has provided the software for the video conferencing purpose.

“The software used in the project is independent of the computer operating system. Also, additional connections would not require readjustment of bandwidth. This makes the project cost effective,” Das said.

The minister said the local bodies have already tested the network by holding several conferences with the district and state headquarters.

Das said that e-governance project would be soon started in panchayats of other districts of the state once the ongoing expansion of SWAN is accomplished. “We expect to complete the expansion project by this year end.”

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