Data can be recovered from only 5-15 hard disks: Experts

According to Information Technology Secretary Rajesh Agrawal,an estimated 500 to 700 computers were destroyed in the fire,with his team recovering 50-odd half-burnt computers from the fourth floor during an extensive salvage effort on Saturday.

These belonged mostly to the Education and Revenue departments,they believe. A team from NASSCOM and the Data Security Council of India is now working on recovering data from the damaged hard disks and is fairly certain on success with around five computers.

In addition,the IT department also decided to undertake an immediate disaster recovery plan for the government’s State Data Centre in the New Administrative Building opposite Mantralaya,a state-of-the-art centre supervised by NIC,which houses the main servers. Between Friday and Sunday,the entire data at the data centre was replicated by Netmagic Solutions. All 2.27 lakh scanned files,the crucial service tax data that yields the government Rs 60,000 crore annually,the property registration records,vehicle registration data,land extracts,etc are now backed up by one if not two copies.

Meanwhile,1,000 to 1,200 new desktop computers and 200 to 400 laptops have been blocked for purchase from vendors who have a rate contract with the government.

“We may require around 1,000 new computers over the next few weeks,” said Agrawal,referring to new government offices being established at various locations,including the GT Hospital building that was stuck in a legal dispute until Friday,MTNL buildings at two different locations and some office space at the World Trade Centre (WTC) in Cuffe Parade. “WTC is a furnished and readily usable office space,so 100 machines and a few printers and scanners were delivered there today,” Agrawal said.

For the other offices,machines are likely to be delivered and warehoused. The total cost of establishing the new IT systems and connectivity through LAN or Internet for the Mantralaya staff is pegged at Rs 4 crore.

While computers were available in almost all offices in Mantralaya on Monday,many were out of use due to power fluctuations and lack of connectivity. Agrawal said LAN or dongles or MTNL connectivity would be made available on Tuesday.