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West Bengal govt selects Tata Infotech as partner in wide area network project Financial Express - Jan 23, 2001

Kolkata: The West Bengal government has selected Tata Infotech Ltd as the system integrator for a pilot project that will be the foundation for a wide-area network (WAN) covering the entire state.

"We have already selected the partner. The partner is Tata Infotech," chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told The Financial Express.

Mr Bhattacharjee, who is also in-charge of the state's information technology department, was replying to a question after giving the keynote address at an IT exhibition organised by the Computer Association of Eastern India.

According to an official of Webel, the West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corp Ltd, there were two parties interested in implementing the pilot project - Tata Infotech, and a Hyderabad based company.

Senior officials of Tata Infotech confirmed that the company had bid for the job, but said they were not yet aware of the government's decision.

Tata Infotech will supply and integrate the end-equipment necessary to implement various facilities like e-mail and video conferencing.

The company, which reported revenues of Rs 432 crore last year, is one of the leading system integrators in the country. It offers a wide portfolio of services and technologies. The company is also implementing various computerisation projects of the West Bengal government. According to the ambitious Rs 280-crore WAN project, the state capital will be connected to every gram panchayat, panchayat samiti, zilla parishad and district headquarters.

In the pilot project, six districts will be connected with government headquarters in Kolkata via fibre optic cable owned by the Union government's department of telecommunications. The total cost of the pilot project will be around Rs eight crore.

For the main project, the government is looking for equity partners from the private sector, as well as funding from other sources.

The state government expects the WAN to be the backbone for e-governance. Incidentally, the theme of the chief minister's speech at the IT show today was "e-opportunities in the east".

According to the top official of the information technology department, the backbone will connect the educational institutions and public offices as well as information kiosks with data and Internet.

"The main vehicle for reaching the public at large is through communication and connectivity," said Mr B Chatterjee, principal secretary to the IT department.

Apart from the West Bengal State Wide Area Network, the official name for the backbone, the government plans to set up an application service provider (ASP), which will provide the necessary software to the government bodies.