By: Nasir Azam
Srinagar: In a matter of grave concern, Jammu & Kashmir government has failed to implement centrally-funded State Wide Area Network (SWAN) for e-governance despite the passage of the original deadline.
Official documents in possession of news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) lay bare that the first Detailed Project Report (Proposal) for SWAN was received from the State of J&K in May 2007.
The proposal was cleared by Empowered Committee under the Ministry of Electronic and Information in January, 2008.
Subsequently, the State issued request for proposal (RFP) on four different occasions in the past but could not finally select System Integrator (SI) due to what was said to be ‘poor bid response, very limited participation by the vendors and exorbitant higher bid value.’
“The last L1 bid received in 2014 was also very high and J& K state was required to re-bid after necessary modifications in the RFP,” reads the documents.
IT experts believe that if there was poor bidder response or the quoted costs were over and above the estimated costs, it indicates that the project cost projections were faulty.
“If there are huge variations between the estimated costs and the bid amounts from.the market, it means the project design was poorly conceived”, he added.
The documents further reveal that “there were few consultations and discussions between Ministry and the State of J&K keeping in view of specific requirements of the State during 2018-19.”
“Ministry also suggested that State may decide on mode of System Integrator i.e. either through GeM or through open tender. However, State was also advised to select the SI through fastest and appropriate mode as per State financial rule,” the ministry documents reveal.
In its report tabled in Lok Sabha in December 2019, the Parliamentary standing committee on Information Technology also pointed out that SWAN has been implemented in all the States/UTs except Jammu & Kashmir.
In its response, the Ministry informed the panel that as per Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019, the State has been divided into two Union Territories (UTs) and there may be administrative, technical and financial implications for implementation of SWAN.
It is worthwhile to mention here that the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) project is a major core infrastructure project under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). —(KNO)