State Wide Area Network
Project Cost (in lacs): 7,623.00 Fund Received: 2,487.70
The Nationwide SWAN Scheme for 29 States & 6 Union Territories, at an estimated outlay of Rs. 3334 Crores, was approved by Govt. of India, in March 2005 to set up State Wide Area Networks (SWAN), interconnecting each State / UT Head Quarter with District Head Quarter and below each District Head Quarter with the Block Head Quarters with minimum 2 Mbps leased line.
The objective of the Scheme is to create a secure close user group (CUG) government network for the purpose of delivering G2G and G2C services. The duration of project is 5 years with a pre-project implementation period of 18 months. The project is being implemented as a Central Sector Scheme with Rs. 2005 Crores as Grant-in-aid from Department of Information Technology and balance fund from the State Plan fund under Additional Central Assistance (ACA) allocation.
Implementation of SWAN Scheme is in full swing across the country. Pre-project implementation phase (after the individual project is approved by the Empowered Committee) includes Feasibility Study, Proposal Preparation, Site Preparation, Bandwidth Operator selection, Network Operator selection, Network Implementation, Acceptance Testing and to operate network for next 5 years. The monthly status of implementation across the States/UTs is available on the DIT Website. SWAN provides inter connectivity among 95 community from District Headquarter to Block/Tehsil Headquarter over a 2 mbps link and 4 mbps link for data, voice and video communications. Current Status: 133 out of 135 PoPs under vertical connectivity are operational. The Treasuries of the State have been connected over SWAN.
Wide Area Network is an advanced telecommunication infrastructure, which is used now-a-days extensively, for exchange of data and other types of information between two or more locations, separated by significant geographical distances. The medium of connectivity can be copper, optical fiber cable or wireless, as may be found feasible. Such wide area networks, in a way, create a highway for electronic transfer of information in the form of voice, video and data.
Department of IT in Government of India is implementing an approved Scheme known as State Wide Area Network (SWAN) Scheme, envisaged to create such a connectivity in each State / UT, to bring speed, efficiency, reliability and accountability in overall system of Government-to-Government (G2G) functioning. When fully implemented, SWAN would work as a converged backbone network for voice, video and data communications across each State / UT. SWAN is designed to cater to the governance information and communication requirements of all the State / UT Departments. When fully implemented, SWANs across the country are expected to cover at least 50000 departmental offices through 1 million (10 lacs) route kilometers of communication links.
SWAN Features
A wide area network deployed in a State or UT would have two components viz.
- Vertical Component
- Horizontal Component
The vertical component of SWAN is implemented using multi-tier architecture (typically, three-tier) with the State/UT Headquarter (SHQ ) connected to the each District Head Quarter (DHQ) which in turn gets connected to the each Block Head Quarter (BHQ). Each SHQ, DHQ and BHQ point of connection is called a Point of Presence (PoP), which is a point of bandwidth aggregation for several network links getting connected at this point. The bandwidth provisioning for network connectivity between all the above PoPs is a minimum of 2 Mbps. Presently, the connectivity provisioning between every SHQ and DHQ is for 4 Mbps and DHQ to every BHQ is 2 Mbps. For the horizontal component, the government departments at each tier are connected to the respective PoPs.
The SWAN aims to create a dedicated Closed User Group (CUG) network of minimum speed of 2 Mbps by connecting around 7500 pops, providing Data, Voice & Video connectivity to more than 50,000 govt. offices. The networks aim at increasing the efficiency of the government delivery mechanism and optimizes the performance. The backbone thus created would provide reliable, vertical and horizontal connectivity within the State / UT administration and would facilitate electronic transactions between all the government departments.
To ensure desired Quality of Service (QoS) by the Network Operator and the Bandwidth Service Provider, a Third Party Audit mechanism has been created in the SWAN Scheme which would monitor the performance of the SWAN network in each State / UT. The Third Party Audit (TPA) agency shall perform for a period of five years from the date of final acceptance test of the network and primarily monitor the compliance of the Service Level Agreement (SLA) which the State / UT would enter with the Network Operator and also with the Bandwidth Service Provider.
SWAN Implementation Model
There are two Options for SWAN implementation; the PPP Model and the NIC model. In the PPP model the State / UT identifies a suitable PPP model (e.g. BOOT) and selects an appropriate Network Operator agency through a suitable competitive bid process for outsourcing establishment, operation and maintenance of the Network. In the NIC model the State / UT designates NIC (National Informatics Centre) as the prime implementation agency for SWAN for establishment, operation and maintenance of the Network. NIC in turn would identify a Facility Management Service (FMS) agency for the State / UT concerned, to manage day-to-day management and operation of the network. Majority of the States / UTs have opted for the PPP model for the implementation SWAN. BSNL has been identified as a preferred Bandwidth Service Provider for SWAN Scheme across the count.
Current Status of SWAN Implementation
The following will give a glimpse of current Status across the Country
- Till date individual SWAN proposals have been considered and approved for 33 States/UTs with an total DIT outlay of Rs. 1,964.97 crore and Rs 562.41 have been released so far.
- The SWANs in 19 States/UTs namely, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Jharkhand, Chandigarh, Delhi, Pondicherry, Tripura, Lakshadweep, West Bengal, Sikkim, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Maharashtra have been implemented.
- The SWANs in 4 States namely, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand are in advanced stage of implementation, Network trials are being conducted at different tiers of SWAN.
- The SWANs in 4 States/ UTs namely, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya have identified the Network Operator and implementation is underway.
- The SWANs in 4 States namely, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan, Mizoram, Nagaland, have initiated the bid process to identify the Network Operator for implementation.
- The 2 UTs namely Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu are in RFP/BOM finalization stage.
- The State of Goa and UT of Andaman & Nicobar Islands have implemented Wide Area Networks outside SWAN Scheme.
- Special arrangement has been made with BSNL for providing bandwidth at concessional tariff.
