One of the important elements of core infrastructure of supporting e-Governance initiatives of National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of India, State Data Centres (SDC) act as a mediator and convergence point between public domain and government environment. It also ensures that different state departments host their applications on a common infrastructure which leads to the easing up of integration and efficient management resulting in the optimum use of computing resources and the support connectivity and infrastructure.

SDC can prove to be of immense help to states in establishing contact with their citizens, however, in order to implement SDC they require to follow certain norms. For example states, union territories and NIC have to together form a team for SDC. Though, the authority of applications rest with states, National Informatics Centre (NIC), through its core team would provide complete hand holding for infrastructural up-keep, operations and management which would also include issues related to the continuance of business. Then the state can also select an appropriate agency through a suitable competitive process for outsourcing.

Gauging its importance the SDC scheme has been approved by the Central Government with an estimated budget of INR 16230 million over a period of five years. Furthermore, it is also expected that SDCs would be set up and operationalised by the end of 2009 across different states and union territories in the country.

Since the time the SDC scheme has been approved by the government the proposal for establishing SDC has been approved in 18 states and union territories.

Regards,
e-Gov Team

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State Data Centre: Backbone for Service Delivery
S.P. Singh,Senior Director, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India

S P Singh has been with Department of Information Technology for over 25 years and held various positions. S.P. Singh has been involved in the preparation of National e-Governance Plan. He is also responsible for e-Governance implementation in Urban Local Bodies (Municipalities), Agriculture sector and e-Procurement which are very large and ambitious initiatives of the Government of India.

Only less than 3 weeks to Asia-Pacific e-Gov Forum – Register NOW! CTO’s Asia-Pacific e-Gov Forum is being hosted by the Malaysian Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications. egov is the official media partner for this event. Please visit www.cto.int for further information.

CTO’s 3rd e-Gov forum will bring together the region’s key decision makers to explore the issues facing the government, citizens and the ICT industry. This forum for debate, discussion and solution finding will take place in Kuala Lumpur during 20th – 22nd May 2008.

For the private sector If you would like to meet heads of procurement from the public sector and Ministers of Communications from the region, then register NOW. Limited speaker opportunities available, please contact Conference Producer Mani Rai at 0044 20 8834 15645 or emai hm.kaur-rai@cto.int today.

FREE for Operators and Public Sector Please note this event is free for public sector leaders and mobile operators only if they register before 10th May 2008. Delegates wishing to register after 10th May must pay the full delegate fee. EARLY BIRD OFFER expires 10th May.

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