State Wide Area Network (SWAN) has been identified as an element of the core infrastructure for supporting e-Governance initiatives. BSWAN is expected to cater to the information communication requirements of the entire state government and its departments. Through implementing BSWAN, the Government of Bihar (GoB) wishes to provide reliable, vertical and horizontal connectivity within the state administration to make the Government more productive.

Government of Bihar (GoB) established a network namely Bihar State Wide Area Network (BSWAN) through its Department of Science and Technology (DS&T), Technology Bhawan and Patna providing network connectivity to Government Offices and Departments at State Capital, District, Sub-Divisional, and Block headquarters across the State. There will also be adequate bandwidth provision to meet the increasing demands of data, voice and video transmission. BSWAN will link GoB offices at the State Data Centre, called as the State Head Quarter (SHQ), District Head Quarter (DHQ), and Block Head Quarters (BHQ).

BSWAN has been fully implemented in the SHQ at Patna, all 37 DHQs and 470 BHQs. Different services such as Video Conferencing between the Government officials, iWDMS, VAT MIS and e-District are currently running successfully on BSWAN. BSWAN is currently being monitored from the Technology Bhawan, Patna.

The aim of this project is to raise the security of the Secretariat premises by reducing the free access to the Secretariat. The objective is also to cover the aspects of authentication and monitoring of the employees and visitors while entering and exiting the premises by issuing smart chip based cards to each employee.

During this project the main aim was to prepare application with database for maintaining a repository of the employees, ensuring their attendance and controlling their access to and from the Secretariat. As the system has a SMART card it needs capturing the details (in the form of electronic data) of employees including their finger prints and photograph. After collecting the data it needs to be validated by the respective department.

 

During the course of this project Electronic data of about 11,800 employees has been captured and the validation of the collected Data has been completed. Personalization and issuance of ID cards to employees has commenced on 8th July 2008 and till date about 11,500 employees received their cards. 12 Card readers have installed at all building entrances of the Old Secretariat at Patna. The attendance application has been hosted at the BRAIN Data Centre. This application can store the data about the attendance of all the employees. The SecID is successfully used at Beltron Bhawan Patna for daily attendance and it is expected to be used soon in all the secretariat buildings of the Government of Bihar in Patna.

The ‘ICT in schools’ scheme is a window of opportunity to the learners in the Government aided Secondary and Sr. Secondary schools in the country to bridge the digital divide. The scheme is a comprehensive and well thought-out initiative to open new vistas of learning and to provide a level-playing field to school students, whether in rural areas or in the metropolitan cities.

ICT@School Project is the establishment of computer lab in all 1000 schools. Each of the lab contain one server, 10 PC nodes, networked with Printer and Scanner, computer furniture etc. As part of improving the basic infrastructure the project also contain physical infrastructure improvement by doing false ceiling, Vinyl flooring painting etc. and power backup facility like UPS and Gensets in each school.

The Objectives of this project is to enable student to have national and international level of education in computer a dedicated IT Trainer is provided in each schools. In order to mitigate various risk of failure on operational and financial front, the project will be rolled out under PPP modal, specially using BOOT modal on quarterly lease basis for 3 years.

The Project has been approved for 1000 schools spread across the State of Bihar. The project has been successfully implemented in 400 schools.

Bihar State specific Courseware has been designed and developed in Hindi as per the curriculum of schools. The courseware was verified and approved by Bihar Intermediate Examination Board for ICT@School Project. In all 400 completed schools Computer Faculty Induction program has been done and also Skill up-gradation Training has been conducted for 1st Year.

The mission of Bihar Online is to establish the service delivery channels of Bihar Online Project as an obvious choice for accessing G2C and G2B services and most preferred option for B2C Services.

Bihar Online shall be Informative, Interactive, Integrated, Preferred and Trusted Service Delivery Channel for all the Government to Citizen (G2C) & Government to Business (G2B) Services of the State and its constituent departments. Bihar Online shall satisfy basic tenets of service delivery i.e., citizen-centricity, interoperability, scalability, reusability, security and cost-effectiveness. It is to be a preferred way for the citizens to interact and transact with Government of Bihar and its constituent departments. The Bihar Online Portal is envisioned to be a service completion channel of which information dissemination is a small but important part.

 

Bihar Online will provide informational as well as transactional services to the citizens. The portal provides both static information Services and interactive Services like Utility Services, electricity bills, government recruitments, online form submission for recruitments and birth certificate request processing etc. The information Services are accessible to anyone who has an internet connection and can log on to the Bihar Online website. To avail the interactive Services like request processing and bill payments, the user must be a registered citizen with BIHAR Online Portal. A registered user means the user who has successfully created his/her login ID in the BIHAR ONLINE web portal.
Various interactive services which will be available through Bihar Online will be Right to Information, Tenders, Bill Payments, Certificates, CSC operators’ logins, taxes, recruitment and travel related information.

 

In order to modernize the Prison Security in the Prisons of State, the Home Department (Prisons), Government of Bihar and Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd. (BSEDC) has started this project. The objective of this project is to design a surveillance and security system for the prisons of the state.

IP based Cameras have been installed in the Prisons so as to monitor the status of prisons remotely. These cameras can help the senior officers at State Level to monitor the security status in the prisons. Leased line based video conferencing facility has been provided so as to provide video conferencing facility between the Prisons and the Courts. The plan is to connect 53 prisons and 47 courts. This project will reduce the safety risks involved in transferring the inmates from prisons to the court as well as the transportation cost involved will be reduced.

Apart from this Baggage scanners have been deployed at 6 Central Prisons. VHF Radios, Metal Detectors system and Emergency sirens have also been deployed in the prosons. Power backup facility has been provided by the gensets so as to maintain 24X7 availability of the IT systems deployed in the prisons. The whole project is on BOOT model in which the vendors will have to maintain it for next 3 years and then the project will be transferred to the government.

IWDMS or Integrated Work Flow & Document Management System has been developed for different Departments of Government of Bihar. The application has gone Live in Department of Finance and Planning & Development Department of Government of Bihar.

 

The Objective of this application is to ensure effective, efficient & transparent administration and create an automated Office Management System. This system will help the departmental officials by enhancing their productivity as they will be able to prioritize their work. IT would be used as an enabler to help in daily work and design an efficient workplace. This will ultimately help in policy based processing and will provide a mechanism for information and experience sharing. In this system an effective MIS will be generated to aid the senior management.

Government of Bihar has taken a decision to implement the application in following departments in first phase:

1. 
   Chief Minister Secretariat
   
   
2. Chief Secretary Secretariat
   
   
3. Finance  Department
   
   
4. Planning & Development department
   
   
5. Personal & Administrative reform department
   
   
6. Home Department
   
   
7. Law Department
   
   
8. Industry & Sugar cane department 
    

IWDMS application has been installed at BRAIN Data Centre and the same has gone live in Finance department and Planning department as of now.

 

e-District as a concept proposes integrated and seamless delivery of citizen services by District Administration through automation of workflow, backend digitization, integration and process re-design across participating Departments such as Revenue, Civil Supply, Social Welfare, Election, Land Records, and Registration etc. for providing services to the citizens.

e-District is a State Mission Mode Project being co-funded by the Government of India. Currently the project is going into pilot phase in the four districts if the state – Nalanda, Aurangabad, Madhubani and Gaya.

This project is being implemented on the BOOT model. In this project the vendor has to provide hardware, software, connectivity, networking and data digitization for Four Collectorates, Fourteen Sub Divisions and seventy six Block / Circle Offices for Nalanda, Aurangabad, Madhubani and gaya Districts in an efficient and effective manner on Lease, Maintain, and Transfer Basis (LMT) for three years.

e-District project will use CSC and CFC (Citizen Facilitation Counters) for the delivery of services. The project is expected to provide the maximum benefits to the common citizens as they will be able to get the Government services with minimum delays and their doorsteps. This project will make the government more responsive, efficient and will create a system of good governance. After successful completion and execution of the project in the first four pilot districts the scheme would be launched in the rest 34 districts of the State of Bihar. .

CTMIS or Comprehensive Treasury Management Information System is a project devised to connect all the treasuries in the state through the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and create a comprehensive system for an efficient and effective MIS for all the treasuries.

CTMIS proposes an integrated approach for management of government income and expenses. It encompasses budgeting, allotment of budget to the administrative departments and its DDOs, treasury transactions and budget compliance / Income /Expense analysis.

 

A Centralized solution will not only address the issues of time lag, and information asymmetry present in the decentralized treasury system, but also help in the consolidation, aggregation and effective information dissemination in a cost-effective and sustainable manner. With the centralized solution central monitoring of treasury transactions across all treasuries of the state can be done easily and data consistency is be maintained. In short, right information will be available at the right time, to the right person or entity. CTMIS system will be an integrated one, which will facilitate entering of information at a central point in the Head office and the same will be available across the concerned Treasuries. This will also prevent misuse of budget allotments. The presence of connectivity between the Treasuries and the Head Office will ensure automatic transfer of information.

CTMIS will help the finance department to capture the budgetary demands from various departments and ensure allotments of budgetary amounts to different department.

VAT-MIS or Value Added Tax Management Information System has been designed and developed to provide a better monitoring of Commercial Taxes Department of Government of Bihar. VATMIS software is based on a centralised architecture system werein servers have been placed in the BRAIN Data center at Technology Bhawan Patna. Various locations of the department are connected on optical fibre and BSNL leased lines

 

The application has been developed by M/s TCS Ltd. based on the User Requirement Specifications (URS) signed off by the Commercial Tax Department. The application has already gone live in 46 locations. Apart from the department use the VATMIS has enabled e-payment of taxes by citizens resulting in comfort of tax payers.

Sec LAN or Secretariat Local Area Network is a Local Area Network for all the Government office in and around Secretariat (SecLAN) and connectivity to State Data Centre (SDC) at Technology Bhawan, Bailey Road, Patna. It is used to extend the success of computerization for Government of Bihar (GoB). Sec LAN is providing the information and communication technology to drive improved efficiency and responsiveness in day to day administration of the Government.

 

The SecLAN is an edge to accommodate increased collaborative applications. The SecLAN has connected from Technology Bhawan where the State Data Center and State WAN is located, to all the nine buildings (Old Secretariat, Vikas Bhawan, C.M. Secretariat, Technology Bhawan, Vishveswarya Bhawan, Sinchai Bhawan, Sochana Bhawan, Beltron Bhawan and Lalit Bhawan).

SecLAN is creating a single, converged network that provides voice, data and communications to the employees, citizens and businesses, spread all over the State of Bihar through BSWAN and BRAIN DC Projects. In Sec LAN project optical fibre has been laid to provide interconnectivity between the departments. Data Nodes have been provided at the locations of officers. Sec LAN has a dedicated helpdesk to resolve the queries of the government officers. The Sec LAN network is used to provide VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calls and the VoIP telephones have been provided to the senior officers.

e-Shakti Project  was conceived to consolidate the implementation of NREG Scheme in the state by encouraging application of modern advancement in Information & Communication Technology. The purpose of the project is to improve transparencies and fast track implementation of NREGS Bihar.

The goal of the project is to ensure correct and timely wage payment to right beneficiary at right time. In order to achieve this goal, it was realized that correct beneficiary identification at the time of attendance at work site and at the time of wage disbursement was absolutely critical.

This project is expected to serve NREGS related need of all villages, Gram Panchayats, CD Blocks, Districts of Bihar state. It is going to strengthen capacity of the villagers, PRIs & Other implementing agencies, state NREGS administration & the service providers as well. The total duration of the project is 5 years from inception. The e-Shakti project will be implemented in phases. Phase in is pilot phase and will complete in year one .Further roll out will be stated after successful completion of phase - in The learning and best practices of phase one will be incorporated in next phase implementation.
In this project Biometric Smart Card are envisaged as an Identification tool which can be used for correct identification of beneficiary for efficient delivery mechanism across various government schemes. Fingerprints of all the eligible beneficiaries in the rural areas of the state will be collected for the issuance of Smart Card. Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) will be deployed which will find duplicates in the collected database of fingerprints. This is to ensure false and duplicate registrations. An e-Shakti customised application tuned to NREGA Soft of NIC. Financial inclusion of the beneficiaries would be done by opening their bank accounts and the end user will be trained for the system.

BRAIN (Bihar Revenue Administration Intra Net) is a state of the art data centre established at Technology Bhawan Patna. The aim of this project is to provide a centralized secured data warehouse enabling the Government of Bihar to store, share and retrieve information pertaining to the Finance and Revenue Dept on a real time basis. The Project is funded by Department of Revenue, Government of Bihar. The project aims to create a World Class Tier II secured Data Centre in respect to Ashrae Specifications. This setup has a built-up with the 3 tier architecture and high scalability. Presently, the storage capacity of this data centre is 20TB and it is expandable up-to 50TB. Security (both perimeter and data) is maintained with latest state of the art Firewall, VPN, Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and Department wise VLAN have been created for privacy of data security and ease of accessibility.

Internet Bandwidth is obtained from 2 independent ISPs with a capacity of 8 Mbps and further scalable to 16/32 Mbps as demand arises. The internet access is being provided to all the users with in Secretariat buildings with proper access rules and through Proxy Server. Apart from storing data generated by all the treasury of the state, the BRAIN DC also stores data generated by the all VAT offices and those by the state secretariat. The BRAIN DC has also catered to the department specific needs and many departments, including the road construction and the rural development departments, have sent requests for hosting some special software which would cater to their needs. BRAIN DC hosts various applications such as CTMIS, VATMIS, iWDMS, Bihar Online, SAHANA, SecID attendance system, NREGS - e-Shakti, BSEDC, e-Health Employee Management System, PPMS & BKC websites etc and serving the Government as well as people of Bihar satisfactorily.

e-Procurement is the process wherein the physical tendering activity is carried out online using the Internet and associated technologies. e-Procurement enables the user to introduce ease and efficiency of operations without compromising on the required procurement policies and procedures of the organization.

 

Through e-Procurement the Government expects to increase transparency and efficiency in public procurement, it is also estimated that e-Procurement will bring about savings worth approximately 15-20% annually. At this juncture, the Government is taking efforts to consolidate the existing e-Procurement solutions and implement an end-to-end e-Procurement solution across all agencies in the State. The Government seeks to involve a private partner in implementation of the end-to-end e-Procurement solution.

Departments. GoB has also shortlisted the departments which are to be included in the First Phase (Pilot) of this project. The identified Departments are:

1. 1. Department of Road Construction
2. 2. Department of Building Construction
3. 3. Pul Nirmaan Nigam, Bihar
4. 4. Department of Public Health
   
   

Through e-Procurement the Government expects to increase transparency and efficiency in public procurement, it is also estimated that e-Procurement will bring about savings worth approximately 15-20% annually. At this juncture, the Government is taking efforts to consolidate the existing e-Procurement solutions and implement an end-to-end e-Procurement solution across all agencies in the State. The Government seeks to involve a private partner in implementation of the end-to-end e-Procurement solution.

 

SSDG

The Government of India has advised the states that the common infrastructure (SWAN, SDC & CSC) be leveraged immediately by developing applications and infrastructure required for deployment of State Portals and State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) across the States/UTs. The SSDG aims to achieve a high order of interoperability and facilitate G2C services delivery. Such a framework would enable citizens to download forms and submit their applications electronically through a common gateway.

SSDG as proposed by Government of India can act as an intelligent hub and route Service requests from a service seeker to a Service provider and in return send the response back to the service seeker. SSDG achieves integration amongst diverse set of applications built on varying platforms through compliance with a set of e-Governance specifications. Thus the State portal and SSDG as envisaged are proposed to be an integral part of the G2C service delivery architecture at the State level. Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation (BSEDC) is the State Designated Agency (SDA) for this project. The Detailed Project Report for this project is under way.

 

BHSWAN

Bihar Horizontal State Wide Area Network (BHSWAN) is used to provide an integrated approach to ride on existing BSWAN to provide high speed primary data link for all the offices of Government of Bihar  ranging from State Headquarters, District Headquarters, Block Headquarters to Panchayats. The existing departments which are connected through BSWAN / SEC LAN are Commercial Tax, Government Treasuries, Video Conferencing for all departments, VOIP for all departments, Email / Internet connectivity for all departments. All other departments which are not connected either through BSWAN and SEC LAN will be connected through BHSWAN.

Bihar State has 9 revenue commissionarate, 38 districts, 101 sub-divisions, 534 blocks and 8463 panchayats. The BHSWAN would be implemented in following locations:
State Head Quarter (SHQ) (State Capital) – Patna all Offices (Excluding Offices falling in Secretariat Campus Area). Approximate 200 Offices in State Head Quarter
District Head Quarters (DHQ) – All 38 Districts (Excluding Offices falling District Collectorate Campus Area). Approximate 25 Offices in District Head Quarters

Block Head Quarters (BHQ) – All 495 Blocks (Vertical Blocks) (Excluding Offices falling in Block Campus Area). Approximate 5 offices in Block Head QuartersPanchayats – All 8463

Panchayats which will have Common Services Centers (Vasudha Kendra’s) located in the Panchayats.

CCTNS

Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) is an effort of the Government of India to modernise the police force giving top priority to enhancing outcomes in the areas of Crime Investigation and Criminals Detection, in information gathering, and its dissemination among various police organisations and units across the country, and in enhancing citizen services. 

CCTNS aims at enhancing efficiency and effective policing at all levels, especially at the police station level, through adoption of principles of e-governance, and creation of a nationwide networked infrastructure for evolution of an IT-enabled state-of-the-art tracking system. Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation (BSEDC) is the State Designated Agency (SDA) for this project. The Detailed Project Report for this project is under way.

SDC

State Data Centre (SDC) has been identified as one of the important element of the core infrastructure for supporting e-Governance initiatives of National eGovernance Plan (NeGP). Under NeGP, it is proposed to create State Data Centres for the States to consolidate services, applications and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2G, G2C and G2B services. These services can be rendered by the States through common delivery platform seamlessly supported by core Connectivity Infrastructure such as State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and Common Service Centre (CSC) connectivity extended up to village level. State Data Centre would provide many functionalities and some of the key functionalities are Central Repository of the State, Secure Data Storage, Online Delivery of Services, Citizen Information/Services Portal, State Intranet Portal, Disaster Recovery, Remote Management and Service Integration etc. SDCs would also provide better operation & management control and minimize overall cost of Data Management, IT Resource Management, Deployment and other costs. 

Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation (BSEDC) is the State Designated Agency (SDA) for this project. BSEDC has identified the area in the Beltron Bhawan Patna for hosting the Data Centre. The Detailed Project Report for this project is underway and the tender for this project will be launched soon.

Bihar Knowledge Centre (BKC) has been setup as a Finishing school for graduates with high class Infrastructure and State of the art training facility aimed at equipping students with employable skills for today’s Job Market. The vision of BKC is to bridge the gap between industry requirement and current educational curriculum provided by various institutions and to Impart necessary skill set to the graduates.

 

One centre of BKC is currently operational at Lalit Bhawan, Patna. BKC grooms the students with appropriate soft and IT skills so as to impart an important link between industry and the students benefitting both. Over and above BKC guides the youths, by providing them guidance and support in findings suitable job for them matching their educational qualification and experience right from the training level.

 

The Bihar Knowledge Centre is to have diversified courses in fields of Software Applications, Hardware, Networking and Lab sciences etc. However, BKC proposes to start with a few Courses and Facilities in the first phase to have simplicity and more focused approach towards employability. BKC also held free classes for the Girls and Ladies at various times to educate them the basics of IT. BKC facilities are also been utilized to provide capacity building trainings to the officials of state government.

BKC Team has rendered counseling support to more than one thousand candidates either from its location or by visiting colleges/institutions. Out of which 400 odd numbers of candidates get registered in BKC in different areas of interest.

Jankari call centre under which people can seek info under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Jankari is the first effort of its kind in the country where technology has been used to bring RTI to the masses.  Under this scheme a dedicated Call center has been established wherein a citizen can seek information. The fees of Rs 10 which earlier needs to be submitted in the form of Postal Order would be deducted from the call itself. It works on the premium rate services of the BSNL - premium rate call number 155311 for RTI applications and 155310 as help line number on normal tariff have been allotted by the Department of Communication, Government of India. Jankari is an additional mode for seeking information under RTI apart from the conventional way of giving applications to the office concerned.

Ever since its introduction Jankari has received 22,600 calls. Out of this 7,070 were applications under RTI, 3,016 calls for filing first appeals and 1,400 calls for second appeals. Bihar has been given the Gold Award for this scheme. The Award has been given by the department of administrative reforms, Union ministry of personnel.

This project has been praised at All India level and the model is being replicated in all the states. In the second phase of this project an online portal is being finalised wherein a citizen can request their information online. A payment gateway is being integrated in this system so that a citizen can pay the fees online. A citizen can use his debit or credit card to pay the fees for the RTI service.