A case study on : E-Governance

Sem :5th Branch : IT Roll no : 11IT04 Silver Oak College Of Engineering & Technology

Introduction
Governments in developing countries are keen on bridging the communication gap to remote rural areas in order to improve and monitor the level of government and municipal services provided to these remote villages, provide information related to the livelihood of these citizens (i.e. price of commodities, production and marketing methods) and provide direct, accessible channels for addressing grievances.

Continuous, accessible contact with these areas provides many benefits and enables governments to significantly raise the living standard of these citizens by facilitating access to essential services, to education and better understanding of their needs.

The state of Gujarat, the western-most state in India is an example of a rural area populated with a great number of small, remote villages whose lives have significantly improved due to an effective communication infrastructure.

The state of Gujarat is one of the fastest growing economies in India. It is populated by 13,693 remote rural villages and the Gujarat government resolved to bring the digital age to these remote areas and enable them to benefit from the industrial boom in their state.

Gujarats Network Requirements

Each village of at least 300 is represented by a council of local government, where it is the council that communicates directly with more centralized government representatives.

Gujarat needed a cost-effective, flexible and scalable communication infrastructure that could quickly be set up in the rural areas to provide communication to each village.

The infrastructure was required to support its full range of services, including broadband connectivity to all villages where individuals could have internet access, video conferencing, VoIP, etc.

Most importantly the infrastructure should be easy to manage, deploy and operate, as well as comply with tight budget constraints by having cost efficient capital expenditure (CAPEX) and ongoing operational expenditure (OPEX).

Project
VSAT networks provide the optimal solution for these requirements. These networks are flexible as well as robust. They can be easily set up, maintained and once deployed, can be modified to meet changing needs without requiring additional site visits. These networks are also secure, and independent of the local terrestrial infrastructure and therefore less vulnerable to inadvertent damages.

The Gilat VSAT solution that was deployed in the Gujarat network provides a number of unique benefits that have contributed to the success of the project: Ease of installation With 23 years of experience in developing equipment that is typically deployed in remote locations, Gilats VSATs are designed for simple installation making allowing rapid deployment with minimal on-site expertise required. This is one of the things that made it possible for all 13,693 Gilat VSATs to be deployed throughout Gujarat within a period of approximately 6 months. QoS assurance The Gilat VSAT system includes advance mechanisms for ensuring that the necessary bandwidth is allocated for different traffic types so that the optimal quality of the communications can be achieved. Robust communications The Gilat VSAT system can be deployed in harsh environmental conditions. Exceptionally high MTBF and system stability allow

large scale networks, such as the one installed in Gujarat, to function properly and operate smoothly.

Features
The solution that was selected by the Gujarat Government was a VSAT based telecom infrastructure that provides each of the 13,693 village centers throughout the state with connectivity to the government databases and to the Internet.

The advantages are many and great: Issue of certificates, documents and application forms for example, verification for bought land, issue of birth certificates and any other type of documentation or bureaucratic procedure is issued promptly at the village, where previously it may have required traveling to distant location and an entire day's waiting before being served

Direct communication enables prompt redressal of grievances and significantly improves the ethics of government

More efficient bill payment, record keeping and monitoring of tax collection. The makes it easier for the villagers to pay their bills and therefore increases the overall state tax collection

Access of villagers to commodities related information that directly affects their livelihood for example, price of crop, which crops they should plant and more efficient growing methods

Conclusion
Hence , from this case study we have learnt about network requirements and development in Gujarat.
References:
http://www.gilat.com/e-Gov/Gujarat

http://www.gujaratindia.com/initiatives/