India News Briefs

Media Lab builds digital bridge across Gangetic plain
Media Lab Asia (MLA) has claimed to have achieved a major breakthrough in taking computing and communication to the masses. A research team of Media Lab Asia (MLA) has created an 85 km-long multi hop wireless corridor between Kanpur and Lucknow, called the Digital Gangetic Plain, using the 802.11b protocol and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. This would mean that if the project could be commercially implemented, the 802.11b protocol—that is primarily used for indoor applications within an area of 500 metres—can be used for providing outdoor wireless connectivity for longer distances. The wireless corridor, which is being considered as the first of its kind in the world, has been developed and deployed by a 38-member MLA team (including students from IIT-Kanpur) over a period of eight months. The project, which was successfully completed and tested recently, is aimed at providing voice and data connectivity in rural areas at a low capital and operational cost. “This technology will provide attractive economics for sparsely populated rural areas where existing wireless technologies like GSM (Global System for Mobile) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) based technology may not be commercially viable,” said MLA chief executive officer Bimal Sareen . The range of the 802.11b protocol has been extended by modifying the existing telecommunication equipment available off-the-shelf to keep the cost of infrastructure low and using only one base station on the 75-km stretch between Kanpur and Lucknow. The project has been named ‘Digital Gangetic Plain’ as the corridor cuts across the river Ganga and connects villages in the surrounding area.

AP keen to help other states on e-governance projects
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has proposed the idea of setting up a ‘special technical committee’ to undertake replication of successful IT solutions initiated by some states in a bid to achieve good governance in the country.
Naidu suggested that the committee will have to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of a particular solution before recommending replication. Some of the packages developed by various state departments meet international standards while some are below par. Naidu felt that the proposed committee should ensure that only best packages can be replicated, thus avoiding chaos in the administration. With the Central government agreeing to allocate Rs 12,000 crore funds for taking up e-governance projects, the Union ICT ministry should evaluate projects through a technical committee before duplicating the same, Naidu urged.

Govt launches nationwide IT backbone project for VAT
The Union government has just put in motion one of India’s largest e-governance projects by inviting proposals from big corporates or consortia to set up and manage a huge information exchange system that will be required once the country adopts the value-added tax (VAT) system. With April 1, 2003, the scheduled date for the switchover to VAT nearing, the secretary to the empowered committee of state finance ministers has called for expressions of interest (EoIs) for the deployment of a VAT Information Exchange System or VINXSYS on a build-own-operate (BOO) basis. The VINXSYS will record all inter-state trade among the state VAT departments, and information pertaining to the dealers of all participating states. The project, which was cleared at the March 4 meeting of the committee, is to be implemented on a managed service provider (MSP) model.
An Internet data centre will form the core of the VINXSYS, housing information on every transaction under VAT. This data centre will be connected to the states’ VAT systems via broadband connections. The VINXSYS will have an exchange application software that will record each and every transaction, and also include a call centre to handle questions on the VAT information exchange.

- The Financial Express