Continuing its efforts to implement the Centres e-governance projects,the states Department of Information Technology is all set to implement the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) project by October 2009. The department plans to complete 70 per cent of the work by August. Optical fibre lines have already been laid till the block level in 40 districts. The department aims to complete the work in all 820 blocks of the state at the earliest. One of the biggest projects under the national e-governance Plan,SWAN aims to connect all districts and blocks with the headquarters through a common wide area network. The project was launched in 2005 and is being implemented as a Central scheme with Rs 2005 crore as grant-in-aid from Department of Information Technology and balance fund from the state Plan fund under additional Central assistance allocation. While seven states have already implemented SWAN,Uttar Pradesh,alongwith six others,has an October deadline. Giving details of the progress,a senior official in the IT department said work came to a standstill in the first quarter due to the general elections. Besides,problems arose in laying cables in some districts, the official said. There were hindrances in getting permissions from the local bodies for digging. But since June,we have written to the districts to ensure that the work is completed by August and BSNL has been allowed to work unhindered, he added. Department sources say districts in eastern and western UP were among the first to get OFCs laid in the first phase within the first two years. The work was slower in central UP and Bundelkhand. But even in eastern Uttar Pradesh,work became slow once laying cables began at the block level, the official said. Now finally,we have managed to solve most of the problems and work has begun again. The principal secretary,IT,Chandra Prakash,too sounded hopeful about meeting the deadline. Alongwith laying cables,we are also writing to the districts to be prepared with all information and infrastructure. We hope to get full connectivity by October and launch the project in half of the districts.
