State government undertaking Elcot (Electronics Corporation of Tamilnadu) will get a Rs.100 crore boost to improve the connectivity of government departments across the State through the Tamil Nadu State Wide Area Network, as a part of a plan laid out by the government on Tuesday.
The amount would be used towards the second phase of expansion of the State Wide Area Network (Rs 50 crore) and for establishing horizontal connectivity (Rs.40 crore) that reaches out to last-mile department offices.
Chief Minister Jayalalithaa made the announcements during the course of a suo motu announcement in the Assembly. Cloud computing is a trend that has caught up with leading IT companies across the world over the past decade. Now, the government will move its entire IT operations to cloud computing platform, which among other advantages would help in cutting cost on infrastructure and minimise the risk of technology redundancy. The move to switch the entire operations of its State Data Centre would cost the State Rs.11 crore, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said. A pilot project to test the effectiveness of cloud computing was encouraging, she noted.
Taking into account the requirements for establishing robust e-governance schemes, the State will create a special ‘IT cadre’ of officers to implement e-governance schemes and address IT-related issues in all the government departments.
