Coimbatore : The Tamil Nadu government has been on a technology implementing spree, and the latest on the list is the 'last mile' connectivity to villages.
Coimbatore : The Tamil Nadu government has been on a technology implementing spree, and the latest on the list is the 'last mile' connectivity to villages.
"The Tamil Nadu government is working towards connecting every village in the State using fibre optic cables at a cost of 2200 crores," said Santhosh Babu, Principal Secretary - IT, TN Govt here at 'CII's Connect Coimbatore,' a conference focusing on the theme "The Fourth Industrial Revolution - How can it impact you?".
Addressing the media, the IAS officer was very positive about the State government's IT and start-up policies. He briefed on the various initiatives by the State government to bring technology to the doorsteps of the common man.
"With addition to roti, kapada and makaan, bandwidth has become a necessity in this technology-driven era and the State government is taking every possible step to connect every village in the State. Using fibre optic cable, both above and underground, at a cost of Rs.2200 crores, the Government is working to bring 1GBPS internet to 12,524 village panchayats in Tamil Nadu. This will empower the rural population to a great extent," said the Principal Secretary.
Santhosh Babu also stressed on the need to use technology to solve day-to-day problems in governance and urged the techpreneurs to work toward creating such technology.
"Technology should enable us to have the entire data under one roof. The TN government is working towards creating a master database wherein all the government departments will be brought under one huge master data network. Every government department can have their specific data but the basic data will be the same.
Once this master database is created, everything can be done at the comfort of homes or common service centres. This will enable people to 'feel' the government, rather than just 'see' the government," he noted.
"Once this master database is in place, every information will be available easily in one click rather than having data in different formats for different government departments. And, TN government is also creating centres of excellence in emerging technologies with eight experts from different domains heading the centres", explained Santhosh Babu.
"These centres will help solving day-to-day issues in governance. We have asked the different departments to come up with governance-related issues and provide technological solutions. In this exercise, the Urban Development Ministry has come up with ten to fifteen such issues," reiterated the Principal Secretary.
Santhosh Babu opined that cyber security is a major concern with new technologies coming in. "And, Rs.23 crores has been allotted by the State government to create cyber security Architecture for TN ( CSA - TN), which will ultimately lead to the creation of CERT - TN ( Computer Ememrgency Response Team - TN).
This is expected to be ready by the end of 2019. The aim is to have a cyber emergency response system to protect the digital information of the government. In case of a hack into any of the government systems anywhere in the State, CERT will get an alert in a matter of seconds and the system can be secured. This architecture will be done through ElCOT and C-DAC, in collaboration with TNeGA, NOC, STQC, SETs," he stated.
The Principal Secretary also spoke about the start-up policy of Tamil Nadu which in his opinion will help in changing the start-up ecosystem of the state.