Moment of pride for Uttarakhand

20th National Conference on e-Governance held at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh on 9th & 10th January, (www.himalayauk.org) Leading Web & Print Media. 

It was a moment of pride for Uttarakhand at the 20th National Conference on e-Governance held at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh on 9th & 10th January, 2017; when the flagship Shri Kedarnath yatra IT project bagged the coveted National Award on E-Governance. It is for the first time that a project from the Hill State ofUttarakhand has won the Prestigious National Award since its inception.

Project head Dr Raghav Langer IAS, District Magistrate/ Chairman, District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), Rudraprayag received the award for “Installation & commissioning of
wireless Local Area Network in Kedar valley from District HQ upto Shri Kedarnath temple including video conferencing services, electronic surveillance through IP cameras, Wi-fi, internet facility, hotline
communication and provision of hotspots at different points on yatra route”. The Gala ceremony was attended by Hon’ble Union Cabinet Minister Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu; Hon’ble Chief Minister of Andhra
Pradesh; Hon’ble Union Minister of State, PMO GoI; Hon’ble Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology, Govt of India; Hon’ble Minister of State for Science & Technology, Govt of India. This year’s Conference with the theme of ‘Digital Transformation towards transforming India’ was organised jointly by the Union Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology and the Union Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG). Secretaries, Govt of India of both the Ministries as well as hundreds of senior officials/delegates from all the State Governments & the
representatives from the Industry, NASSCOM, CII etc attended the event. Many key topics in the field of e-governance were deliberated upon with the best minds in the private sector speaking on Digital connectivity to the last mile, IOT and Data Analytics, Cyber Security Policy for the future & the most important topic post demonitisation i.e. Technology Led Monetary Transactions leading to Financial
Inclusion. e-Governance or as the Honble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji has called it the easy-Governance, empowering-Governance or efficient-Governance is on his top priority list.

The Kedarnath wireless local area network project was awarded in Silver Category for the Innovative Use of Technology in e-Governance developed for the strengthening of communication along
yatra route for effective disaster management, mitigation and response (G2G) along with the delivery of various ICT enabled services to pilgrims & locals (G2C) and network bandwidth support to private
operators for their service delivery (G2B). Dr Raghav Langer said that, “Amongst various post-disaster reconstruction works and efforts put in by the State Government for restarting the Kedarnath Yatra,
this flagship IT initiative has also been one significant contributor in instilling confidence in people regarding the safety of the pilgrimage that has seen increasing number of pilgrims coming to the
shrine every year in a very short span of time; thus helping in reviving the Chardham Yatra & economy of the region.”

After a rigorous 3-stage scrutiny process that includes comprehensive screening, field visits by experts for technical audit & presentation before the Jury committee in New Delhi; a total of 20
path breaking IT projects all across the country were finally selected for the National Awards for the year 2016. The award carries a scroll/certificate for the Project along with cash award of Rs 2.00 lakh & 1.00 lakh in Gold and Silver category respectively.
Sahaj- online LPG connection and distribution portal of Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas; Aadhaar enabled PDS system of Andhra Pradesh Government; E-filing project of Income Tax Department, GoI;
g-Triangulation GIS mapping project of Gurgaon, Haryana; web based GIS application of Surat Municipal Corporation; HAWK EYE mobile project of Telangana; Nations’ first Intelligent Transportation System of
Karnataka SRTC; MyGov portal of Ministry of Electronics & IT, GoI; & GyanEra- online management system of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited were amongst the total 20 awardees.

Post- disaster, the District Disaster Management Authority, Rudraprayag wanted to establish a communication network in Kedarnath valley which could serve as a reliable/redundant/ independent/all
weather/sturdy base network communication system. Thus a robust wireless local intranet network in the evacuated bandwidth of 2.4 GHz to 5.7 GHz was established from Sonprayag (at the elevation of 4,500 ft) to Kedarnath Shrine (at elevation of 11,600 ft) along a foot trek route of 21 Km in extremely harsh environmental condition, topography,
sub zero temperatures & in a heavy snowfall/ precipitation area. In spite of tough terrain and extreme weather conditions the network was able to provide the services like free Wi-Fi, hotline SIP (session
initiation protocol) communication, Video conferencing services, real time RFID tracking of mules/ horses, public displays screens for live feed of Shri Kedarnath temple and of major points on track, deployment of internet Kiosk machines and 24X7 electronic surveillance of all vulnerable points in Kedarnath valley using high end night vision PTZ cameras. Further this network was extended using point to point hopping technology with the help of 17 base stations to District Head
Quarter, Rudraprayag covering a distance of approx 91 kms. Two Main Switching Centers (DHQ, Rudraprayag and Sonprayag) were set up for rendering the services. An Internet Lease Line was integrated with the
network at DHQ that activated the wifi internet 3G services along the yatra trek route something which was considered impossible to be achieved in next few years, in post-disaster scenario, by the private
mobile service providers. This network has also been integrated with SWAN/NIC’s NKN network at the District Headquarter to enable SEOC (State Emergency operation Centre) Dehradun & any other PoP for live
access. A bandwidth of 100 mbps full duplex has been achieved between any two base stations on the network thus capable to handle many additional IT enabled services in the future. The Project has already been accorded ISO 9001:2008 certification last year.

The Project Team that won the elusive National Award comprised of Project Head Dr Raghav Langer, IAS (presently Additional Secy Govt of UK), Mr Rahul Goel, Mr Sanjay Singh Negi (NIC), Mr Rohit Singh Sambyal, Hav Ranjeet Negi (NIM signal section), Mr Kundan Rawat (BSNL) & Mr Neeraj Vasisht (SWAN, Rudraprayag).

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