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Maran vows to take IT to rural India

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

New Delhi: Dayanidhi Maran, minister for communications & Information Technology, has said that the Government has taken and would continue to have a number of initiatives to take IT to the villages. He said this while addressing the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to his ministry, here today.

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Speaking on the agenda of the meeting "E-Governance", Maran said that the Department of Information Technology (DIT) had identified certain key priorities in this area.

The first-the creation of core common infrastructure in terms of State Wide Area Networks (SWANs) for providing connectivity, National/State Data Centres for reliable and secured data and Common Services Centres (CSCs) for delivery of Services.

DIT has already announced guidelines for providing supports to the States for the establishment of SWANs. Out of 30 states, 17 have shown keen interest in implementing this project, Maran said. Some of the states have already been financially supported under the SWAN scheme, which has an outlay of Rs.3,334 crore.

An empowered committee on SWAN has been constituted with Secretary (IT) as Chairman and members from Planning Commission, Ministry of Finance, National Informatics Centre and DIT. The committee has already considered SWAN proposals from 14 states and approved Rs. 1027.63 crore. Out of this, Rs. 206 crore, which is 20 percent of approved outlay, have already been released.

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