State Data Centre (SDC)

The Government of Puducherry (GoP) is embarking on a statewide automation of its operations and implementing e-Governance initiatives. State Data Centre is setup to consolidate services, applications and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2G, G2C and G2B services. These services can be rendered by the States through common delivery platform seamlessly supported by core connectivity Infrastructure such as State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and Common Service Centre (CSC) connectivity extended up to village level. State Data Centre would provide many functionalities and some of the key functionalities are Central Repository of the State, Secure Data Storage, Online Delivery of Services, Citizen Information/Services Portal, State Intranet Portal, Disaster Recovery, Remote Management and Service Integration etc. SDCs would also provide better operation & management control and minimize overall cost of Data Management, IT Resource Management, Deployment and other costs. Various departments of the government are in the process of developing and implementing software applications, for which the departments would need to procure and maintain servers. Managing these servers/infrastructure would require investing in substantial dedicated resources at each department/location. Instead, the Data Centre would provide a centralized location for hosting and managing all the servers.

Regarding the fundings of the SDC, the GoI will support the entire cost of establishment, operation and maintenance for the period of five years on 100% grant-in-aid basis. It also includes the back-up power supply (UPS and DG sets) and air-conditioning requirements. The cost of consultancy will be provided as 100% grant by DIT. The cost of monitoring of performance under SLAs would also be covered by GoI support, including cost of engaging a third party for such monitoring/audit of the SDC. The cost of manpower required for domain specialist team for Data Centre operations & management over a period of 5 years shall be provided by GoI.

As per the guidelines issued by MCIT, GoI, there are two implementation options for establishment of SDC. Under Option-I, the State/UT will establish and own the Data Centre and the control of the data/applications will be with the State/UT. The State/UT and NIC together form a composite team for manning and operationalizing the SDC. The server will be owned and operated by the State/UT & the management of the data/information shall be under the direct control of the State/UT.

The Empowered Committee of the DIT, MCIT has approved the total project cost to ₹ 29.69 cr. to be implemented by PeGS over a period of 5 years as detailed below for setting up the State Data Centre:

Therefore, the DIT, GoI contribution is ₹ 10.28 cr. and ₹ 19.41 cr. to be met through Additional Central Assistance (ACA) for NeGP provision of Planning Commission. The total amount of ₹ 10.28 cr. would be released as Grant-in-Aid to be met from e-Governance Head and would be subject to fulfillment of the conditions stipulated in Annexure-I regarding implementation modality. The component wise breakup of SDC are as stated below :

CAPEX :

1. DIT Component :
   
   1. IT Infrastructure
   2. Computing Environment
2. ACA Component :
   
   1. Site Preparation
   2. Support Infrastructure

OPEX :

1. DIT Component:
   1. License & Software upgradation cost for 5 years.
2. ACA Component:
   
   1. Electricity and DG running cost for 5 years
   2. Facility Management for 5 years
   3. Manpower Cost for 5 years
   4. Bandwidth Cost for 5 years.

The Consultancy component for SDC scheme to the consultancy agency has been included as DIT Component and provided in the First Year requirement to the State. The DIT component will be given by DIT, MCIT, Government of India directly to PeGS, the Implementation Agency and ACA component will be given to the Directorate of Information Technology, Puducherry as contribution.