Under the National eGovernance Plan (NeGP), the Department of Information Technology, Himachal Pradesh (DITHP) created a secure network called HIMSWAN (Himachal State Wide Area Network).
Under this project, horizontal connectivity is being provided to various Govt. Departments/ Boards/ Corporations of the State till block level and vertical connectivity till the Panchayat level through Community Service Centers.
Himachal has the distinction of 1st state in the country to commission the HIMSWAN project on 5th February 2008.
The Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India funded this project for initial period of six years. DeitY, GoI funding period got over in the year 2014. Now the State Government has to bear the cost of operation and maintenance of this project.
Hewlett Packard India Sales Pvt. Ltd. has been awarded the contract to establish the network and operate the same for a period of five years i.e. up to May 25, 2013.
M/s Orange Business Services started HIMWAN operation from 1.09.2014.
The objective of the Scheme is to create a secure close user group (CUG) Government network for the purpose of delivering Government to Government (G2G), Government to Business (G2B), and Government to Citizen (G2C) services, e-Procurement, and e-Samadhan, etc.
2,117 Government Offices across the State are connected through the HIMSWAN network.
Under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), Department of Information Technology, Himachal Pradesh (DITHP) has set up Himachal Pradesh State Data Centre (HPSDC) at Mehali, Shimla to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2C (Government to Citizens), G2G (Government to Government) and G2B (Government to Business) services and to create a common infrastructure for State Government Offices.
Benefits of HIMSWAN:
- To make government departments intelligible (easily approachable) to the masses by offering them speedy and efficacious public services.
- To provide Internet/ E-mail facilities and links to various departmental websites using HIMSWAN.
- Better dissemination of information through a web portal and online status of applications submitted online or through post or by hand.
- Reduction in response time in addressing grievances by the concerned departments.
- The updated and latest information regarding public distribution system, list of beneficiaries under different programmes, information regarding government grants given to PRIs, and urban local bodies.
- Facilities to the farmers and villagers who make queries about the latest techniques, advice for their problems, new technologies, etc. from a group of experts pertaining to fields of agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, health, fisheries, etc.
- The other key applications envisaged on the network are E-mail, file transfer, broadcast and data communication, intranets, electronic data interchange services, value-added networks, government communication, call centres, information kiosks, data warehousing, disaster management and maintenance of the wide-area network itself. More extensive video and teleconferencing facilities.