SHIMLA, INDIA: Himachal Pradesh government will place purchase order with HP India to connect 248 state government offices across the state on this Monday. The new offices will be connected by extending connection available at 134 vertical point of presence (PoP) already laid out in the state.

"We will be releasing purchase order of Rs 4.1 million approximately on this Monday to connect 248 offices across the state. We are already working on to connect 513 offices. At Himachal Pradesh we have already connected 638 offices and by this year end we expect to connect total of 1400 offices, " said Rajeev Sharma, Deputy Director, Department of Information Technology, Govt of Himachal Pradesh.

Himachal Pradesh targets to connect 2500 offices with its Himachal Pradesh State Wide Area Network (HIMSWAN) to boost e-governance in the state within the time frame of three years.

Though the state is bullish on e-governance implementation, it is highly dependent of BSNL to connect its remote locations like Kalpa, Dodrakawar, Kupvi, Hangran and Pooh. Some of these location have population as low as 100 and hence are not lucrative for telecom companies from commercial point of view.

"To connect these offices, we will use wireless, xDSL, lease line and local area network technologies. But we are highly dependent on BSNL to provide us lease line with 2mbps speed," said Gaurav Bhatia, project implementation manager, technical services, HP India.

"At many location we are unable to get this speed from BSNL as the same line is used for providing telephone connections. The xDSL connection available from BSNL gives speed of 348 kbps. We need xDSL also from BSNL to connect various horizontal offices across PoPs."

He said if BSNL provided these technology in-time then they would be able to meet the target within 80 days.

HP will connect offices located within 100 metres distance of PoP with LAN. HP has already installed around 134 base tower stations of 30 meter height across the state to meet its target of connecting 2500 offices in three years' time.

To connect new offices at more than 100 metres distance from PoPs, new towers of approximately three metres in height will be installed on the offices to get connected with 30 meters BTS.